“Hit him with a brick?”
“No, my fist.”
“Never do that to a crook, Johnny. They wouldn’t do that to you. Put ’em to sleep with the best thing you can grab, then argue with ’em after they wake up. Talk about honor among thieves; there ain’t none. They’re a low lived lot, too lazy to work. Half of them have got heads like kids and the other half are full of hop. A dirty bunch of low lifed cowards who take knives and guns to rob people.
“An’ look at the stuff they write about ’em in them there paper books and magazines. You’d think they was high class gentlemen down on their luck and doin’ an honest turn by robbin’ some one just so as to get back on their feet again, wouldn’t you? Or mebby goin’ in for it as a sort of sporting proposition. Livin’ dangerously, they’d call it. Danger! It’s their victim that gets the danger! Honor! Romance! Living dangerously! Bah! Hit ’em first, that’s my motto!”
“And that,” said Johnny, rubbing his bruised head, “is going to be my motto in the future.”
When the next opportunity presented itself Johnny did not forget this resolve. He followed it through, and with the most astonishing results.
“Ben,” said Johnny a moment later, “I want to keep in touch with you. That fellow may come back.”
“That’s what I been thinkin’ an’ I don’t like it.”
“Of course you wouldn’t. And if he did you’d want him taken care of.”
“Certainly would, Johnny, unless I could get close enough without him seein’ me to take care of him with a brick.”