"'Listen, you mugged guns. You think you kin call th' turn on me an' so want to touch for a few centuries [$100 bills], an' after that fur a few more, and after that some more yet. Let me till you that you'll not only not get a red-un out uv me, but, if ivir I see th' mugs uv ye within a half-acre of this joint again, I'll tip off th' Front Office an' put ye where ye belong. Oh, it's aisy enough fur me to do it, so it is. A wurrd to th' Big Man, or th' payple uptown, sayin' that two bustid crooks was thrying to blackmail me--me, th' prisident of a large an' repitable corporashun, to say nothing uv me soshul and personal sthanding--an' where wud ye be? How could th' half uv us in a game like I'm runnin', kape goin', if Mulberry Street an' the Big Man, didn't privint the likes uv you from botherin' thim uv us who've bin a bit mixed up with gun graft in th' past? To privint ye thin from takin' chances this side uv th' Loine in th' future, I give it to ye straight thot we're so will looked afther by thim who can do it--an' _do_, mind ye--thot th' touch uv this button or th' touch of this wan would mane a couple of husky fly-cops, who'd shake th' shell off ye, before ye got th' framin' up thot would make ye sick uv York fur th' rist of yer days. An' now git, th' pair of yez.'" "An', Cig., we got, feelin' like th' sneak who foinds he's swiped a jar uv moldy pickles. "'I thought I knowed th' whole uv th' graft game,' said Clivir, whin we'd got clear uv the joint, 'by theory, anyhow,' sez he, 'but, Split, take it from me, th' only people who's really on to it, an' knows th' size uv it, an' th' shape uv it, an' th' spread uv it, an' where it begins an' how it inds, an' _what's in it_, is th' Front Office an' th' guys behind it.' "Which words was thrue, Cig.--they was sure thrue." The next day, I called on Robins with the letter from the alleged victim of the land deal enterprise, asking him what he had to say about it. He opened a desk, produced a box of cigars, passed them to me, and, looking me straight in the eyes, said, with a smile: "And what sort of answer do you want, anyhow?" Whereupon I felt and saw that I was up against a cool, clever confidence man who had chosen to "work" in the Wall Street district instead of amid the environments of the usual sort.