' "Did you try pulling out 'is teeth and sending them to his pa?" I asks.
' "No," says Jimmy, "I didn't do that."
' "Did you make the kid write pathetic, asking to be let out?"
' "No," says Jimmy, "I didn't do that."
' "Did you cut off one of his fingers and put it in the letter‑box?"
' "No," he says.
' "Well, man alive," I says, "you don't deserve to succeed, you just don't know your job."
' "Oh, cut that out," he says; "it's easy to talk. You've been out of the business ten years. You don't know what things are like nowadays."
'Well, that rather set me thinking. As I say, I'd been getting restless doing nothing but just pottering round the pub all day. "Look here," I says, "I bet you I can bring off a job like that any day with any kid you like to mention." "Done!" says Jimmy. So he opens a newspaper "The first toff we find what's got a' only son," he says "Right!" says I. Well, about the first thing we found was a picture of Lady Circumference with her only son, Lord Tangent, at Warwick Races. "There's your man," says Jimmy. And that's what brought me here.
'But, good gracious, said Paul, 'why have you told me this monstrous story? I shall certainly inform the police. I never heard of such a thing.