ut don't let me stop the good work for
you. I'll have a few drags at a cigarette and we can talk just the
same."

He waited for a few moments, hoping the desperado would resume where he
left off. But when Big Slim once more began to talk, he did so in a
reflective vein, removed from the direct course of the story.

"Things do take funny twists," said he. "Funny twists! One minute you
think you've got 'em, and the next they're dipping in behind the
scenery."

"I've noticed peculiarities like that myself," confessed Bat. "The good
things I've seen coming my way would stock a novel with incident. But
the number that broke right for me ain't been so many as to cause me to
worry. They have a habit of heading off before they get to the plate,
just as you say."

"To have a quart of diamonds all but wrapped up for you--and then to
miss them--that's rough."

"I should say it was," agreed Bat. "But," rather carelessly, "how did it
turn out? Did the girl get 'em back?"

Big Slim finished with the food and pushed back his plate. Then he took
out a tobacco pouch and a packet of papers and rolled himself a
cigarette. Blowing a long stream of smoke into the wet air of the
cellar, he said:

"I've let you in on this a little because I think you're a good fellow,
and I wanted to show you that I didn't throw Allen down cold. See? But
this job ain't over yet, and I don't talk much about things that ain't
done--for I've seen too many of them spilled that way." He took another
long draught of smoke down into his lungs and exhaled it. "I figure on
coming out right on this thing; do you get me? But I ain't saying
anything more."

Bat weighed the matter carefully. He saw a sort of settled expression on
the thin lips of the burglar, and this told him there was little to be
hoped for by questioning.

"And I may get him suspicious of me," reflected the big man. "It doesn't
take much to get these phony guys putting their ears up and listening
for alarms. And if that once happens here my chance is gone."

So he said nothing more on the subject, though all the time he was
burning to do so. The talk drifted into other channels, and in the
course of a half hour Big Slim, looking at the clock, said:

"I'm sorry, bo, but I'll have to pull my freight. I'm going to see if I
can't put some things right to-night."

Bat arose with him, a feeling of quick expectancy beating in his mind.

"To-night," he repeated to himself. "Put some things rig