ar
junkshop relics, and we unlimbered them, loading with nails, scrap iron,
and broken glass. 'Course, we couldn't hit anything special, but it
broke the monotony for both sides. Once in a while they'd shoot back,
just out of politeness, but I don't believe any of 'em ever took any
medal at a schuetzenfest.

This lasted for two or three nights. It wasn't such bad fun, either, for
us. The party of the second part, though, wasn't off on a vacation, like
we were. They were out rustling for money to pay the landlord and the
butcher, and they were losing time. Hard working lot of brigands they
were, too. I wouldn't have monkeyed around after dark on that
perpendicular landscape for twice the money, and I don't believe any of
'em drew more than union rates. Fact is, I was getting to feel almost
sorry for 'em, when one night something happened to give me the marble
heart.

I'd been making my rounds with the brass foundry, seeing that all the
tramp chains were on, putting out the cat, and coming the "Shore Acres"
act, when I sees something dark skiddoo across the court to where the
Boss stood smoking in the moonshine by the fountain. I does a sprint,
too, and was just about to practise a little Eleventh Avenue jiu-jitsu
on whoever it was--when flip goes a piece of black lace, and there was
the lady brigandess, some out of breath, but still in the game.

She opens up on the Boss in a stage whisper that whirls him around as if
he'd been on a string. Not wantin' to butt in ahead of my number, I sort
of loafed around just outside the ropes, but near enough to block a
foul. Now, I don't know just all they said, nor how they said it, but
from what the Boss told me afterward they must have had a nice little
confab there that would be the real thing for grand opera if some one
would only set it to music.

Seems that she'd found out, the lady brigandess had, that the old man's
gang had run across a bricked-up passageway down in one corner of the
basement, a kind of All-Goods-Must-Be-Delivered-Here gate that had been
thrown into the discards. Of course, they'd gone to work to open it up,
and they'd got as far as some iron bars that called for a hack-saw.
They'd sent off for their breaking and entering kit, meaning to finish
the job next day. The following night they'd planned to drop in
unexpected, sew the Boss up in his blanket before he could make a move,
and cart him off until I could bail him out with a peck or so of real
money.