The Liberal democrat. [volume] (Liberal, Kan.) 1911-1924, 1914-07-17

OLD SLEUTH's STORY
BY C. L. CULLEN.

street office Of the Tombs, where he
was to pick up a pair of sentenced
men, bracelet them together, and con
vOy them up the river"-which Is tC
say, the Sing Sing prison.
l fell into step with him, and after q
while he told me casually what his job
for that day was to be.
"Old-time lags, the pair that I'm
pointing to stir (prison) today" he re-
marked. But I'm glad OF that. It's
the tirst-tilners, and the way they take
It tosheart when I'm packing them UP
the road, and the way their women
folks at the station shrivel up when
the gate closes on their man. that gets
me around the neck-band.
THE two gumshoe stlck-up men
that I'm chaperoning to the pen today
will be chattering all the way up on
the train, figuring on what cell-tier
they'll catch. what kind OF lob the
turnkey of their tier will be, whether
they'll make the laundry or the stone
yard, how many of the old guns that
were there the last time they came
here and did bit will still be there,
and all the like Of that.
For those two old-timers the going
up thing is like being on the way to
take the Kelley cure. They know the
inside game, and play 1t with signals.
I'm always glad when it's that way.
AS | say 1t catches me hard around
the fichu sometimes when I'm escort
Ing the new ones, and especially the
youngtsh ones that've got women folks
that still believe in 'em and care for
EN-, up to the Unbelievable plant"
Il had always understood" | put In,
that even the new ones, most Of
them, put on at least show Of game
ness when they we're starting of to
do their first trick"
"Oh, they're game enough" the old
headquarters man replied. That =,
they don't show anybody what's going
on inside of EN-. None of them ever
handed me any of that blub-blub stuff.
But when there's a little woman in
on the blow-off, then it's me to keep
my lamps glued to the station clock
so that won't be able to see the
breakaway from the clinch of the girl
and her boy
i've been bull for 80 years, square
enough, and know the smell of prisons
as well as know the Whit of ham,
and.
I've brought up and seen go their
ways whole houseful Of young ones,
which is why maybe l always try to
con the chief into slck-listing me when
I'm wised up to it that I'm slated to
convoy one of the first-timers; one
with a girl wearing his ring and mont
ker, up the river.
But the chief always hands me the
boot when l try to pull that on him.
and I've never yet been able to bull
chief into Hopping me of one of
those hard Jobs.
Il steered one to stir last year about
this time. that pSk the tacks so deep
into my tonsils that came near hav-
ing to get EN- pulled out by lock-
smith.
And the finish of that steer-up was
little game OF gulpiness that made
me cancel the eats, and just sit around
the house for three, days, and smoke
myself close to the pension list.
He was clean-faced, decent-look-
ing young fellow; bookkeeper or col
lector. or something like that; and.
from playing the ponies, think 1t was,
he'd nicked his firm for a few bum
hundreds.
His firm got after him like traflc
cop getting hunk with chauffeur that
he's laying for; and the boy, who'd
never made a dip-in before In his life,
and probably never would have again
II the firm had given him a run for
his taw marble. was soaked a Ave
speaker for his first frisk of a little
bundle OF pungerino bones.
He took the wallop steady enough.
though when he caught the eye Of the
girl sitting alongside his counsel. I'm
not saying that he didn't swallow q
little cotton for himself.
THE girl Just rested her arms on
the table, and put her head in them,
and you could see her shoulders shake,
though she didn't make any sounds
worth mentioning
she was a pretty little slip Of a
thing. and she and her man had only
done the stand-up before the parson
and settled into one Of those install
ment-junk, Quarter-meter fats about q
year before.
You could see that he was all the
world and the milky way to her, and,
says to myself, when saw her shout
ders heaving that way when the boy
was led of. Me for an acute case OF
housemaid's knee or lumbago If they
try to spin me to the job of steering
that one over the road
For l knew that the girl would be
at the station, and I'm getting too
groggy around the Adams apple to
dish myself out any more dents of that
kind than have to.
Did l get by with that little spiel
to myself? Never a chance! was