The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.) 1911-1922, 1914-07-15
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OLD slEUTH'S STORY
(Copyright.l
BY c. L. CULLEN.


street Office Of the Tombs, where he
was to pick up pair of sentenced
men. bracelet them together, and con-
voy them up the river"-which Is to
say, the Sing Sing prison.
fell into step with him, and after a
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 first-timers, and the way they take
it to heart 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 stick-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 a 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 l say, it catches me hard around
the flchu sometimes when I'm escort
ing the new ones, and especially the
youngish ones that've got women folks
that still believe in 'em and care for
em, UP to the double-warble plant
II had always understood | put in,
that even the new ones, most OF
them, put on at least show Of game
ness when they were starting of to
do their first trick
"Oh, they're game enough" the old
headquarters man replied That Is,
) 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 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 CIR
and her boy.
I've been bull for 80 years, square
| enough, and know the smell Of prisons
I as we'll as l know the Whit OF ham
I and.
/ I've brought up and seen go theil
ways a whole houseful Of young ones
which is why maybe l always try tt
I con the chief into sick-listing me wheI
I'm wised up to it that I'm slated tt
4 convoy one of the first-timers; ont
with girl wearing his ring and monl
ker, up the river.
but the chief always hands me tn
/ boot when ! try to pull that on him
/ and I've never yet been able to bull
: chief into Topping me off one o
those hard Jobs.
( II steered one to stir last year abou
= this time, that put the tacks 80 dee
& into my tonsils that came near hay
+ ing to get EN- pulled out by a loci
/, smith.
T And the finish of that steer-up wa
: little game of gulpiness that mad
I: me cancel the eats, and just sit aroun
3 the house for three days, and smok
: myself close to the pension list
Il He was clean-faced, decent-lool
. ing young fellow; bookkeeper or co
lector, or something like that; ant
70 from playing the ponies, think it wa
II he'd nicked his firm for a few bun
y hundreds.
. His firm got after him like trafi1
- COD getting hunk with chauffeur tia
y he's laying for; and the boy, who
- never made a dip-in before in his III
and probably never would have agai
9 II the firm had given him run ft
- his taw marble, was soaked nv
- specker for his first frisk of a lit
" bundle Of pungerino bones.
:, He took the wallop steady enoug
!, though when he caught the eye OF Il
- girl sitting alongside his counsel, L
= not saying that he didn't swallow
~ little cotton for himself.
:. The girl just rested her arms
- the table, and put her head In theI
i and you could see her shoulders shak
though she didn't make any soun'
"A worth mentioning.
- "She was pretty little slip Of
a thing, and she and her man had on
- done the stand-up before the parse
and settled into one Of those instt
ment-junk quarter-meter fats about
year before.
You could see that he was all Il
l world and the milky way to her, an
| says to myself, when saw her shot
| ders heaving that way when the b.
| was led off, Ne for an acute case
| housemaid's knee or lumbago If tn
| try to spin me to the job OF steeril
| that one over the road
| For | knew that the girl would
| at the station, and I'm getting t.
groggy around the Adams apple
| dish myself out any more dents of tn
| kind than l have to.
| did | get by with that little spi