"You'd of done better if you'd turned on the hollow of your foot that day and romped right back to the old farm," Broad asserted. "You'd never of doubled up with the McCaskeys and you'd still be the blushing yokel you was."
"Yes, you're a different kid, now." Both gamblers, it seemed, were in the melancholy mood for moralizing. "Why, we was talkin' to Rouletta about you this morning. She's all bereaved up over this thing; she sent us here to cheer you. You was clean as an apple, then—and easier to pick—now you're just a common bar-fly, the same as us. Laure done it. She's the baby vampire that made a bum of you."
"You're not very flattering." Phillips smiled faintly.
"Oh, I'm sort of repeatin' what Letty said. She put me to thinkin'.
She's quite a noisy little missionary when she gets started."
"Missionary!" Broad exclaimed, in disdain. "I don't like the word. Them birds is about useful as a hip pocket in an undershirt. Why, missionaries don't do no real, lasting good outside of Indian villages! Us sure-thing guys are the best missionaries that ever struck this country. Look at the good we done around Dyea and Skagway. Them gospel-bringers never touched it. We met the suckers on the edge of the Frozen North and we turned 'em back by the score. Them three walnut husks done more good than the Ten Commandments. Yes, sir, a set of cheatin' tools will save more strayed lambs than a ship-load of Testaments."
"Letty figgers that somebody tossed that goldsack over the top of the cage after you follered the Count out."
"Impossible," Pierce declared.
"I got an idea." It was Broad speaking again. "The mere contemplation of physical violence unmans that Frog. He'd about as soon have a beatin' as have a leg cut off with a case-knife. S'pose me and the Kid lure him to some lonely spot—some good yellin'-place—and set upon him with a coupla pick-handles. We'll make him confess or we'll maim and meller him till he backs out through his bootlegs. What d'you say?"
Pierce shook his head. "Something must be done, but I doubt if that's it. It's tough to be—disgraced, to have a thing like this hanging over you. I wouldn't mind it half so much if I were up for murder or arson or any man's-sized crime. Anything except STEALING!"
"A mere matter of choice," the former speaker lightly declared. "We got boys around the Rialto that has tried 'em all. They don't notice no particular difference."