“Vell, Mr. Carpenter, he dunno vot dem fellers is like—”
“Sit down, Abey!” commanded the old lady. “Ve ain't ordered no stump speeches fer our dinner.”
We seated ourselves. And Carpenter turned his dark eyes on me. “I observe that you have many kinds of mobs in your city,” he remarked. “And the police do interfere with some of them.”
“My Gawd!” cried T-S. “You gonna have a lot o' bums jumpin' on people ven dey try to git to dinner?”
Said Carpenter: “Mr. Rosythe said that the police would not work unless they were paid. May I ask, who pays them to work here? Is it the proprietor of the restaurant?”
“Vell,” cried T-S, “ain't he gotta take care of his place?”
“As a matter of fact,” said I, laughing, “from what I read in the 'Times' this morning, I gather that an old friend of Mr. Carpenter's has been paying in this case.”
Carpenter looked at me inquiringly.
“Mr. Algernon de Wiggs, president of the Chamber of Commerce, issued a statement denouncing the way the police were letting mobs of strikers interfere with business, and proposing that the Chamber take steps to stop it. You remember de Wiggs, and how we left him?”
“Yes, I remember,” said Carpenter; and we exchanged a smile over that trick we had played.