I says to him. "If all that stuff you claim for this roll
foundry is on the level, it must take a lot of dough to run it, eh?"

"Are you tryin' to kid me?" he sneers.

"No!" I comes back. "But speakin' of bakeries, I'd sacrifice my sacred
silk socks for a flash at them skilled Scandinavians assemblin' that
bread, before I move on to nasty New York!"

The Kid slaps me on the back and grins.

"Go on, Foolish!" he says. "You got this bird on the ropes!" He turns
to the runt. "All I want," he goes on, "is one peep at them likable
Lithuanians--can I git that?"

"You guys is as funny as pneumonia to me!" snorts the little guy,
gettin' red in the face. "That stuff may pass for comedy in Yonkers or
wherever you hicks blowed in from, but it don't git no laugh outa me!
D'ye wanna see this shop or don't you--yes or no?"

"Let's go!" I tells him. "You got me all worked up about it!"

"Same here!" says the Kid. "I only wish I could talk like you can, but
I guess it's a gift, ain't it?"

The little guy grunts somethin' and nods for us to fall in behind him,
and we lock step along till we come to another joint from which was
issuin' what I'll lay eight to five was all the noise in the world.
How they ever gathered it up and got it in the buildin' I don't know,
but I do know it was there! If you'd take a bowlin' alley on
Turnverein night, a boiler factory workin' on a rush order and the
battle of Gettysburg, wind 'em up and set 'em all off at once, you
might get a faint idea of how the inmates of that buildin' was ruinin'
the peace and quiet of the surroundin' country. A dynamite explosion
in the next block would have attracted as much attention as a whisper
in a steamfittin' shop.

"I thought the war was all over!" hollers the Kid, holdin' his ears.
"Has the police been tipped off about this?"

"What d'ye mean the police?" screams back the runt. "That there is the
mixin' and bakin' shop."

"Yeh?" I cuts in. "Well, I don't know what them skilled Scandinavians
of yours is at, but, believe me, they're _tryin'_ all right!"

The runt sneers at us.

"You must be a fine pair of hicks!" he says. "D'ye mean to say you
never heard of the Eureka Mixin' and Bakin' machine?"

"I can hear it now, all right!" I tells him, noddin' to the buildin'
where the boilermakers was havin' a field day, "but--"

"Sufferin' salmon, what boobs!" he interrupts me. Then he gives us
both the once over and starts his sneerer workin' a