"Well, what d'you make out? Aren't they darn suckers? Look at that job line in bum ink. Could you get that face from a Limburger cheese? And the dope? After handing you a valentine that 'ud scare a blind Choyeuse, and you couldn't rec'nize for a man without a spy glass, they set right in to tell you he's 'wanted' for things he did in the North-west two and a haf years ago. The p'lice have been chasing him for two and a haf years. They've never located him, and he's likely living in the heart of Sahara or some other darn place by now. And now—now some buzzy-headed 'cop' reckons he's got a line, and dopes out that stuff to warn him they're coming along, so he can get well away in time. Makes you laff."
There was irritation in the man's tone. There was something else besides.
The blue-eyed English crook was studying the picture closely.
"It sort of seems foolish," he said at last.
"Foolish? Gee!"
"Still, it is the face of a man, and a good-looking man," he went on. "And there's something familiar about it, too; I seem to know the face." Suddenly he looked round, and his pale, searching eyes looked hard at his companion. "Say, he's not unlike you. He's got the same forehead, and the same eyes and nose. If you'd got no beard, and your hair was brushed smooth——"
"Tchah!"
The bearded man reclaimed the paper with a laugh that carried no conviction.
"The courts 'ud hand me big money damages for a libel like that," he declared.
"Would they?"