“Nothing. That’s all I know. Going to try to get the case now, whatever it is.” “Is that all you told him, Larry?” asked Lanagan. The Rat mumbled unintelligibly and shuffled away. “The Rat’s answered after his breed,” said Lanagan. “He says no, it is not. Now, Horace--pardon me, Barrister Lathrop--kick through. You know I’ve got to deliver a story to my paper to-day. Come on.” Lanagan never wasted words with Lathrop. There were a few trivialities that he “had” on that individual. But Lathrop balked. “Look here, Lanagan, all I got’s her name and address. It isn’t square. She may have a roll as long as your arm. You print this story, the newspaper men go at her for interviews, tip her off about me, she gets a regular lawyer, and where do I come off? You fellows are always crabbing our game. I gave you that shoplifter story a week ago and you played it for a column. You know you did, Jack; now you know you did.” Lathrop had been whining. Now he stiffened. “I ain’t going to,” defiantly; “I’m tired o’ being bullied by you. Aw, say now, Jack, it’s a big case. And I got a wife and kids to look out for”--which was a fact--“and here you come taking the bread and butter out of their mouths. It ain’t square, Jack; you know it ain’t.” All morals to all men, reflected Lanagan, and laughed lazily, pulling a copy of the _Enquirer_ across the table. “See her, Horace? Right on this page--page one, column two, right here, with your name in big black-face letters--a little story of about one-third of a column on that $750 touch-off on that Oroville deacon, who went astray for the first time of his life and was pinched as a drunk--to be fleeced by you and your precious band. There isn’t any way of getting his money back, or proving a case against you or the two cops who cut the roll with you and Fogarty. I didn’t print the story, but I’ve got the facts pretty straight; and it goes right here--right in this nice, conspicuous place for the grand jury to see and for that wife and those ‘kids’ to see also, who, singular as it may sound, actually don’t know what particular brand of a ‘lawyer’ you are. Get all that?” Lathrop “got” it. Lanagan was then told that the detinue cells held a young woman of remarkable beauty, Miss Grace Turner, taken from a family rooming house on O’Farrell Street. Also that through Lathrop word of her arrest was to be taken to her brother there. Lathrop--or Larry the Rat, both being cogs in the same machine--had come by the information by the underground wire that runs from every city prison to the bail-bond operators and their shysters without. Fogarty was the bail-bond chief, and possibly one of the plain-clothes men who just now rested his elbow upon the bar may have passed that name and address to Larry the Rat. The “detinue” cases are those on the secret book at headquarters, that stable police violation of Magna Charta; the detinue cases, therefore, become the focus of the police reporter’s activity.