“Chances?” said Magill, frowning. “Yes. You really know nothing about him.” “Only what he told me.” “That may not be true.” “But the circumstances and what he has done----” “All are right as far as they go,” Gridley curtly interrupted. “But they are not enough. We must be dead sure of him. We must find out just who he is and where----” “Say, are you ginks talking about me?” Patsy cut in, with affected resentment. “Yes, we’re talking about you,” snapped Gridley. “You’re a stranger to us. We might get in wrong, you know, in blindly relying upon a stranger.” “Oh, is that so?” Patsy retorted. “And I might throw a shoe, too, by helping a strange gang in such a game as you guys are playing. What do you want--my pedigree?” “See here, Dolan----” “Oh, I’m seeing all there is to see,” cried Patsy, frowning. “You’ll find out, mebbe, that I’m a law-and-order spotter, or a central-office sleuth.” “It would cost you something, all right, if we did.” “You guys give me a pain. I’ll tell you now. I’ll show you the way,” Patsy forcibly added, seizing the telephone for a moment, but quickly replacing it on the table. “There is one man who can tell you all about me. He will give it to you straight,” he quickly went on, now shouting with pretended resentment. “Call up 47 Madison! 47 Madison! Here, I’ll write it for you on the edge of this newspaper, so you’ll make no mistake. 47 Madison! Ask who Jack Dolan is, and----” “Dry up!” snapped Gridley, interrupting, while Magill, Morgan, and Phelan stared from one to the other. “I’ll not telephone to anybody. You keep cool, Dolan, and answer my questions. This is nothing for you to get hot about. Who is the party, anyway?” “He runs a barroom near Madison Avenue,” said Patsy curtly. “What’s his name?” “Jim Donovan. He knows all about me. He’ll tell you who I am and whether you can bank on me.” “Sure, Ginger, we can bank on him,” Magill now cried impatiently. “He’s all right, or he wouldn’t have lent me a hand to get the skirt.” “That’s right, too,” Morgan chimed in confidently. “He’ll go the limit, Ginger, you can bet on that.” “So he will, perhaps, but there was no harm in making sure of it,” Gridley now said, less harshly, evidently impressed with these arguments and the attitude Patsy had taken. “He ought not to kick at that.” “Oh, he’s not kicking. He’s all right, Gridley, from his toes up,” Magill insisted. “He knows what he’s doing.” The blinded rascal never spoke more truthfully. Patsy already had turned one of the cleverest tricks of his exceedingly clever career. All the while during the heated discussion, which had absorbed the entire attention of the four crooks, Patsy had been tapping with his lead pencil on the metal mouthpiece of the telephone. He had so placed the instrument near the pile of books that they lifted the receiver sufficiently to let its hook rise and make a connection with the number he thrice had shouted--chiefly, of course, for the ears of the exchange operator.