“Yes.”
“Sure! I recognized you when I see you coming in the door. You was playing in that game last week, wasn’t you? Sure! Well, now, listen, to you I’ll say a dollar and seventy-five cents. If papa was here he’d skin me, but I’m a great feller for football, and—”
Jim was pointing through the top of the case to a pair of cheap imitation gold cuff-links fixed in a small card. “I’ll let you have them for a dollar, seventy-five and those links there.”
“I couldn’t, positively!” Mr. Kohn, Junior, extracted the links in question from the tray and read the cryptic figures on a corner of the soiled card. “Say, you know what these sell for. Sixty-five cents! Look for yourself!”
“‘g n l’” read Jim. “That don’t spell sixty-five to me; it spells twenty-five.”
Perhaps Mr. Kohn, Junior, was not without a sense of humor, for he chuckled quite humanly, hesitated a moment and finally turned to a huge safe at the back of the narrow shop. “Say, you got a cheek, ain’t you?” he asked almost approvingly. “I got to give you that. I guess you football fellers is great bluffers maybe.” He counted out a dollar and seventy-five cents. “There you are, Mister. Call again. Good morning.” Jim took the money and the awful cuff-links and departed. After he had gone young Mr. Kohn rubbed his purchase diligently with a soiled chamois, fixed them to a card, wrote “l d b” in a corner and placed them on a glass shelf. In the obscure code of the Diamond Palace “l d b” signified that the article was to be disposed of for five dollars. As, however, the proprietors permitted themselves the privilege of reducing their goods twenty per centum below the marked prices to secure a sale it was possible that Jim’s cuff-links might some day go for as little as four dollars.
On his way to the Police Station Jim put his new purchases in place and felt vastly more comfortable. The Captain was not in, but the stout Sergeant served as well and conducted Jim up a broad flight of much-worn steps to the second floor of the building. Facing the top of the staircase, a wide portal, its double doors swung open, showed the court room in possession of a few loungers and a clerk busily at work under the judge’s desk. Jim, however, was conducted past the doorway and to a smaller door at the end of the hall. The Sergeant knocked, received no answer and looked in.
“He ain’t come yet. You set down, kid, and make yourself comfortable. He’ll be along in a minute or two.”
The Sergeant left him and Jim took one of the several severe-looking chairs and waited. He didn’t have to wait long, for presently brisk steps sounded on stairs and corridor and a middle-aged man in a closely-fitting suit of small gray checks and a bright red necktie swung through the doorway. Jim arose. The Judge grunted, dropped a bag on the desk, placed a morning paper atop, hung his derby hat in a wardrobe, sank into a swivel chair and lighted a cigar. All these things were done very briskly, so that Jim was on his feet less than a minute before the Judge waved him back to it.
“Want to see me?” asked the Judge in an accusing voice.