Chief Barlow, hunched forward, his undershot jaw clenched on a cigar stub, regarded Larry steadily with his beady, autocratic eyes.  Barlow was trained to penetrate to the inside of men’s minds, and he recognized that Larry was in earnest.

“You mean you think you are going to go straight,” Barlow remarked slowly and meaningly.

“I know I am going to go straight,” Larry returned evenly, meeting squarely the gaze of the Chief of Detectives.

“Do you realize, young man,” Barlow continued in the same measured, significant tone, “that whether you go straight, and how you go straight, depends pretty much on me?”

“Mind making that a little clearer, Chief?”

“I’ll show you part of my hand—­just remember that I’m holding back my high cards.  I don’t believe you’re going to go straight, so we’ll start with the proposition that you’re not going to run straight and work on from there.  You’re clever, Brainard—­I hand you that; and all the classy crooks trust you.  That’s why I had picked you out for what I wanted long before you left stir.  Brainard, you’re wise enough to know that some of our best pinches come from tips handed us from the inside.  Brainard”—­the slow voice had now become incisive, mandatory—­ “you’re not going to go straight.  You’re going to string along with Barney and Old Jimmie and the rest of the bunch—­we’ll protect you—­ and you’re going to slip us tips when something big is about to be pulled off.”

Larry, experienced with police methods though he was, could hardly believe this thing which was being proposed to him, Larry Brainard.  But he controlled himself.

“If I get you, Chief, you are suggesting that I become a police stool?”

“Exactly.  We’ll never tip your hand.  And any little thing you pull off on your own we’ll not bother you about.  And, besides, we’ll slip you a little dough regular on the quiet.”

“And all you want me to do in exchange,” Larry asked quietly, “is to hand up my pals?”

“That’s all.”

Larry found it required his all of strength to control himself; but he did.

“There are only three small objections to your proposition, Chief.”

“Yes?”

“The first is, I shall not be a stool.”

“What’s that?”

“And the second is, I wouldn’t squeal on a pal to you even if I were a crook.  And the third is what I said in the beginning:  I’m not going to be a crook.”

Barlow’s squat, powerful figure arose menacingly.  Casey also stood up.

“I tell you you are going to be a crook!” Barlow’s big fist crashed down on his desk in a tremendous exclamation point.  “And you’re going to work for me exactly as I tell you!”

“I have already given you my final word,” said Larry.

“You—­you—­” Barlow almost choked at this quiet defiance.  His face turned red, his breath came in a fluttering snarl, his powerful shoulders hunched up as if he were about to strike.  But he held back his physical blows.