Henry C. Rowland

“ Léontine looked at me. “Ivan,” says she, in her low voice, “is the one who arranges most of this work here in Paris. He has the entrée to many good houses, and when he goes into society he is on the lookout for an opening. When he finds one he turns it over to some of his people, giving them all the necessary information. Listen.”
The Pole was studying his note-book. Presently he looked up and smiled. “Here is something which ought to pay,” says he, “and which should not greatly tax the skill of so distinguished an expert as our friend. ”

“ Léontine looked across the table. “Chu-Chu hasn't any such principles,” says she, lifting her chin a little.
“Every man to his taste,” said I. “But when it comes right down to a question of cold nerve it strikes me that it needs more to work unarmed than to know that you've got a gun to fall back on. Besides, it's better practice; it makes you a lot cleaner in your technique.” ”

“ A burglar gets to have instincts, like a wild animal or a cat or any other prowler, and several times mine have warned me of danger and saved my pelt before there was actually anything that came within the range of the ordinary senses. It's an uncanny feeling, and the only one that has ever made me nervous. Danger that you have positive evidence of ain't hard to face or get around, but danger that you feel in the air without being able actually to sense is mighty unsettling.
I put out my hand behind me, and it fell on Léontine's shoulder, and rested there. ”

“ I've seen some lovely women in my time, but this girl was superhuman when it came to body and face and the tone of her voice. Everybody was in evening dress, of course, and the first glimpse I got of the others made me think I was in a sure-enough swell crowd. The girls were pretty, and the men, one a Pole and the other a Frenchman, looked distinguished and high bred. The Frenchman wore the red ribbon and had a fine face with keen eyes and an iron-gray mustache and imperial.
“Léontine,” says Jeff to the beauty, “let me present my old friend and comrade, Francis Clamart. ”

“ Four women and two men were in the room, but the only one I had any eyes for was a tall, dark girl in an orange-colored chiffon gown that made her look like a nymph coming up out of some gorgeous lily. It was cut lower than you'd see anywhere except on the French stage, and she had a great rope of pearls, almost as deep as amber, and just matching her satin skin. ”

“ We were all a little quiet as we got into the car, a big touring affair with a double row of seats. I told the chauffeur to go to my hotel, and presently we pulled up in front of the door. I ran up and filled the pockets of my overcoat with what I thought I might need, then ran down and out, wondering what the gold-laced concierge who opened the door of the car for me would think if he knew that the gay swell he was serving was a burglar on the way to a job! ”

“ There are two emotions that never touched me; one is scruple and the other fear. Good workers go down under both sometimes, and if I had been with real swell people at the start it might have been different. But where the boss of the house buncoes his guests at bridge and brags of it afterward to his wife, before the butler, there ain't much of an example set to the service. ”

“ I went to London, but it was early spring, and the raw damp brought out my fever; so I lit out for Monte Carlo, where I managed to drop the bulk of my wad, then went up to Paris, where the first man I ran into at the Moulin Rouge was my old pal, Jeff.
We sat down and had a drink, then says he: “Look here, Frank, I'm off to a swell supper-party. Will you come? Any friend of mine will be welcome there.”
“Who are the people?” I asked.
“The spread is bein' given by Léontine Petrovsky,” says he. “She's a wonder; half French, half Polish. ”

“ He is also known as 'His Lordship,' 'Wall Street Frank,' 'Tide-Water Clam,' and 'The Swell.'”
“Ha!” says the Frenchman. “I have heard of you, camarade!” He stepped over and gave me his hand.
“Monsieur Maxeville,” says Léontine, with a smile, “is also a celebrity. No doubt you have heard of 'Chu-Chu le Tondeur'?”
I had, of course, because my profession has its cracks as well as its cracksmen. The Pole I had never heard of, but they told me that his work was mostly executive, having an able gang under him to carry out his ideas. ”

“ But the sight of the jewels had got Léontine excited.
“There must be some more jewelry up-stairs,” says she. “Let's get all that there is.”
“No,” said I. “It's not worth the risk. We are well paid for the job. Let's get away.”
“But I want the rest,” she whispered. “And I want the fun of getting it. This has been too easy.” She moved toward the door. “Come, let's go up.”
I slipped my arm around her waist and drew her back. “Don't be silly,” said I. “That is the way people get in trouble. We've had our lark and made a good haul ”

“ A Walla-baby is an escaped French convict who keeps alive by making a nasty mess of sorghum and chopped cocoanut and peddling it to the nigger piccaninnies at a total net profit of about five cents a day. ”

“ Their game was to get a billet as governess or companion or something of the sort, locate jewels, money, or other valuables as well as the habits of the family, then give up the position and come back later to work the house.
Well, we chatted for a while and had a drink or two, and pretty soon another man came in. He was Italian and a sort of executive officer of the Pole. Then supper was served in a gem of a Louis XV dining-room with all the good things to eat you can think of and vintage champagne, but I noticed that nobody drank much. People at the head of any profession don't, I notice ”

“ Look like a gentleman? My boy, a crook should always look like a gentleman, if he can manage to! It was easy for me because my father's family was about the best in the United States, barring only, perhaps, my mother's. ”

“ The result was that I got to thinking of myself as a man that wasn't getting what by rights belonged to him, and I went to work to correct that with all the natural intelligence I had in me, which was considerable. ”

“ The cop pulled back the overcoat, and the Russian lugged out my fist, still full of bills! I couldn't open it, mind you! Jeff was laughing fit to bust, but it took three cops to keep the crowd from maulin' me. “À l'eau!” says they; “à l'eau!” Meanin', I take it, to first give me a bath in the water-jump. That's the way with Frenchies; they love a crook, as long as he doesn't get nailed. ”

“ A week or so later I got a billet on a boat bound for New York, and once there I was all right-o, as I had a grub-steak salted away where I could get it; and as soon as I got rested up a bit and some of the sugar-fields fever rinsed out of me I was back on my old job again. Butler? Not on your life! Thief—the oldest profession in the world and instituted by father Adam himself, or, to be more accurate, by mother Eve, Adam being only the fence, like. ”