get hold of a lot of
'snow.' I'll bet I'd take in more real change than a gambling house."

"Stick to cracking cribs," begged Bat "It's got more stuff in it for a
man with nerve."

"Listen," said the lank burglar as he leaned across the table, "using
your nerve all the time ain't what they tell you it is. Nerve ain't with
you always; and when it's all warped and faded with hard usage, that's
all you get. If you can't buy more and you can't patch up the old, what
are you going to do? So why not a corner in the dope market as an easy
graft?"

"It don't listen good," said Bat, positively. "I'd rather get a big name
for opening babies' banks. It wouldn't sting so much."

"You're a regular particular guy, ain't you?" Big Slim had a
disagreeable grin on his thin-lipped mouth, and eyed Scanlon
attentively. "You must have been well brought up."

They ate their food in comparative silence when it was brought; and as
soon as they had finished the burglar pushed back his chair.

"Let's get down to Gaffney's," said he. He put his hand to his swollen
face as they arose. "I've got a little trick to turn."

The streets were crowded with a mass of cheap pleasure seekers; the
burlesque theatres and motion picture places were besieged with throngs;
from the open fronts of auction houses the strident voices of the
auctioneers rose in feeling appeals that every one grasp the
opportunities offered. "Store show" keepers stood upon high, narrow
platforms draped all about with canvases upon which were painted
monstrous errors of nature and "wonders" fresh from far-off lands. There
was a smell of uncleaned corners and open drains; the very mud of the
streets held a greasy quality which made the unaccustomed passer shudder
a little, and make haste.

And upon all this was thrown the glitter of many lights; from iron poles
they hung in huge white domes; windows, filled with flashy merchandise,
blazed with clusters of them; reeking alleys were exposed by the glare
of their hanging lights as is a deep-set, poisonous sac by the scalpel
of the surgeon. Illuminated signs of all sorts glared at one; some were
lurid and stationary; others again flowed about in never ending
contortions, making grotesque and high-pitched proclamations.

"Gaffney's round here somewhere?" asked Bat, after they had walked
through the district for some little time.

"Just off here a little ways," replied the burglar. They turned a corner
under the lee of a glaring