They don't have to promise but once, for Vincenzo has been through the mill. It was this kind of work that had queered the count. According to Vincenzo, old Blue Beak had been Pat-Crowed regular every season for five summers, and the thing had got on his nerves.
Well, Vincenzo lets three or four of 'em in one day just as the Boss and me were swappin' uppercuts and body punches in the courtyard. Maybe they didn't like the looks of things. Anyway, they hauled off and sent for the main guy, who was busy down the line a-ways. He comes up with the reserves, and his first move is to send the girl in to get a line on us. And that was the way things stood up to date.
"Who'd a thought it?" says I. "The way she looked at you I suspicioned she'd marked you out as something good to eat."
That turned the Boss red behind the ears. "I'm afraid we'll have to ask for her visiting card the next time she calls," says he. "Come, Vincenzo, I want you to show me about locking up."
After that no one came or went without showing a pass, and I lugged about four pounds of brass keys around, for we didn't want to be stood up by a gang of moth-eaten brigands loaded with old hardware. They covered close by day, but at night we could see 'em sneakin' around the walls, like a bunch of second-story men new to their job. Neither the Boss nor I had a gun, never having had a call for such a thing, but we found a couple of old blunderbusses hung up in the hall, reg'lar junkshop relics, and we unlimbered them, loading with nails, scrap iron, and broken glass. 'Course, we couldn't hit anything special, but it broke the monotony for both sides. Once in a while they'd shoot back, just out of politeness, but I don't believe any of 'em ever took any medal at a schuetzenfest.
This lasted for two or three nights. It wasn't such bad fun, either, for us. The party of the second part, though, wasn't off on a vacation, like we were. They were out rustling for money to pay the landlord and the butcher, and they were losing time. Hard working lot of brigands they were, too. I wouldn't have monkeyed around after dark on that perpendicular landscape for twice the money, and I don't believe any of 'em drew more than union rates. Fact is, I was getting to feel almost sorry for 'em, when one night something happened to give me the marble heart.
I'd been making my rounds with the brass foundry, seeing that all the tramp chains were on, putting out the cat, and coming the "Shore Acres" act, when I sees something dark skiddoo across the court to where the Boss stood smoking in the moonshine by the fountain. I does a sprint, too, and was just about to practise a little Eleventh Avenue jiu-jitsu on whoever it was—when flip goes a piece of black lace, and there was the lady brigandess, some out of breath, but still in the game.
She opens up on the Boss in a stage whisper that whirls him around as if he'd been on a string. Not wantin' to butt in ahead of my number, I sort of loafed around just outside the ropes, but near enough to block a foul. Now, I don't know just all they said, nor how they said it, but from what the Boss told me afterward they must have had a nice little confab there that would be the real thing for grand opera if some one would only set it to music.
Seems that she'd found out, the lady brigandess had, that the old man's gang had run across a bricked-up passageway down in one corner of the basement, a kind of All-Goods-Must-Be-Delivered-Here gate that had been thrown into the discards. Of course, they'd gone to work to open it up, and they'd got as far as some iron bars that called for a hack-saw. They'd sent off for their breaking and entering kit, meaning to finish the job next day. The following night they'd planned to drop in unexpected, sew the Boss up in his blanket before he could make a move, and cart him off until I could bail him out with a peck or so of real money.
The rest of the scene the Boss never would fill in just as it came off the bat, but I managed to piece out that the brigandess, sizing us up for a couple of pikers, reckoned that we wouldn't pan out much cash, and that the Boss might be used some rough by the gang. That prospect not setting well on her mind, she rolls out the back door of their camp, makes a swift trip around to our new private entrance, squeezes through the bars, and comes up to put us wise.