“’So, as we go mooching along the drag, with a sharp lamp out for John Law, we cannot help remembering that we are beyond the pale; that our ways are not their ways; and that the ways of John Law with us are different from his ways with other men.  Poor lost souls, wailing for a crust in the dark, we know full well our helplessness and ignominy.  And well may we repeat after a stricken brother over-seas:  “Our pride it is to know no spur of pride.”  Man has forgotten us; God has forgotten us; only are we remembered by the harpies of justice, who prey upon our distress and coin our sighs and tears into bright shining dollars.’

“Incidentally, my picture of Sol Glenhart, the police judge, was good.  A striking likeness, and unmistakable, with phrases tripping along like this:  ‘This crook-nosed, gross-bodied harpy’; ’this civic sinner, this judicial highwayman’; ’possessing the morals of the Tenderloin and an honor which thieves’ honor puts to shame’; ’who compounds criminality with shyster-sharks, and in atonement railroads the unfortunate and impecunious to rotting cells,’—­and so forth and so forth, style sophomoric and devoid of the dignity and tone one would employ in a dissertation on ‘Surplus Value,’ or ‘The Fallacies of Marxism,’ but just the stuff the dear public likes.

“‘Humph!’ grunted Spargo when I put the copy in his fist.  ’Swift gait you strike, my man.’

“I fixed a hypnotic eye on his vest pocket, and he passed out one of his superior cigars, which I burned while he ran through the stuff.  Twice or thrice he looked over the top of the paper at me, searchingly, but said nothing till he had finished.

“‘Where’d you work, you pencil-pusher?’ he asked.

“‘My maiden effort,’ I simpered modestly, scraping one foot and faintly simulating embarrassment.

“‘Maiden hell!  What salary do you want?’

“‘Nay, nay,’ I answered.  ’No salary in mine, thank you most to death.  I am a free down-trodden American citizen, and no man shall say my time is his.’

“‘Save John Law,’ he chuckled.

“‘Save John Law,’ said I.

“‘How did you know I was bucking the police department?’ he demanded abruptly.

“‘I didn’t know, but I knew you were in training,’ I answered.  ’Yesterday morning a charitably inclined female presented me with three biscuits, a piece of cheese, and a funereal slab of chocolate cake, all wrapped in the current Clarion, wherein I noted an unholy glee because the Cowbell’s candidate for chief of police had been turned down.  Likewise I learned the municipal election was at hand, and put two and two together.  Another mayor, and the right kind, means new police commissioners; new police commissioners means new chief of police; new chief of police means Cowbell’s candidate; ergo, your turn to play.’

“He stood up, shook my hand, and emptied his plethoric vest pocket.  I put them away and puffed on the old one.