It was a couple of weeks, too, before I knew why. He let it out one day after we'd had our little kaffee klatch with the gloves. Seems that hearing Sir Peter tell what he was goin' to report about American railroads was just like givin' Gordon an owner's tip on a handicap winner; and Pyramid don't need to be hit on the head with a maul, either. Near as I can get it, he worked that inside information for all it was worth and there's a bunch down around Broad street that don't know just what hit 'em yet.
Me? Little Rollo? Oh, I'm satisfied. With what I got out of that trip I could buy enough shin salve to cure up all the bruises in New York. That's on the foot rule, too.
CHAPTER V
It was that little excursion with Mr. Gordon that puts me up to sendin' over to Williamsburg after Swifty Joe Gallagher, and signin' him as my first assistant. Thinks I; if I'm liable to go strollin' off like that any more, I've got to have someone that'll keep the joint open while I'm gone. I didn't pick Swifty for his looks, nor for his mammoth intellect. But he's as straight as a string, and he'll mind like a setter dog.
Well, say, it was lucky I got him just as I did. I hadn't much more'n broke him in before I runs up against this new one. Understand, I ain't no fad chaser. I don't pine for the sporting-extra life, with a new red-ink stunt for every leaf on the calendar-pad. I got me studio here, an' me real-money reg'lars that keeps the shop runnin', and a few of the boys to drop around now and then; so I'm willing to let it go at that. Course, though, I ain't no side-stepper. I takes what's comin' an' tries to look pleasant.
But this little hot-foot act with Rajah and Pinckney had me dizzy for a few rounds, sure as ever. And I wouldn't thought it of Pinckney. Why, when he first shows up here I says to myself: "Next floor, Reginald, for the manicure." He was one of that kind: slim, white-livered, feather-weight style of chap—looked like he'd been trainin' on Welch rabbits and Egyptian cigarettes at the club for about a year.
"Is this Professor McCabe?" says he.
"You win," says I. "What'll it be? Me class in crochet ain't begun yet."