“And when it comes to openin' boxes--bo, since old Jimmy Hope quit the game and sneezed in, I guess Shang Conklin's the wisest boxman that ever unbuttoned a combination crib with his bare hands. He's sure the real McCoy there--not no common yegg, you understand, with a steel drill and a gat in his kicks and a rubber bottle full of soup tied under his coat; but doin' the real fancy stuff, with nothin' to help him but the old ten fingers and the educated ear. And he never works with a mob neither. Any time you make Shang he'll be playin' the lone hand--providin' his own nut and goin' south with all the clean-up. No splittin' with anybody for Shang--it's against his business principles. That's why he's labelled the Solitary Kid.” Most of this was as pure Greek to Judge Priest, who, I may say, knew no Greek, pure or otherwise. Suddenly aware of the bewilderment revealed in the countenance of his interviewer, Montreal Red checked up and took a new track. “Say, bo, you ain't makin' me, are you? Well, then, maybe I'd better spiel it out slow. Know wot a peterman is?” The judge shook his head. “Well, you know wot a box is, don't you?” “I'm skeered that I don't, though I believe I'm beginnin' to git a faint idea,” said Judge Priest. As though deploring such ignorance Montreal Red shook his flame-coloured head. “I'll frame it for you different--in sucker language,” he said. And accordingly he did, most painstakingly. “Now then,” he said at the end of five minutes of laborious translation, “do you get me?” “I git you,” said Judge Priest. “And I'm mighty much obliged. Now, then, ef it ain't too much trouble, I'd like to git in touch with this here Mister Conklin, et cetery. Do you, by any chance, know his present whereabouts?” Before replying to this the Montreal Red communed with himself for a brief space. “Old-timer,” he said finally, “if I thought you was playin' in with the dicks I'd see you in Belgium before I tipped you off to anything. But this here mouthpiece of mine”--he indicated the note from young Mr. Fairleigh--“says you're on the level. I judge he wouldn't take my good fall-money and then cross me this way. I take it you ain't tryin' to slip one over on Shang? All right, then; I'll tell you where he is--he's in Atlanta, Georgia.” “And whut is his address there?” pursued Judge Priest. “The Federal prison--that's all,” said Montreal tied. He smiled softly. “If I don't beat this little case of mine I'm liable to meet him down there along toward spring, or maybe even sooner. The bulls nailed him at Chattanooga, Tennessee, about a month ago for a little national-bank job, and right quick he taken a plea and got off with a short bit in Uncle Sammy's big house. I was readin' about it in the papers. You wouldn't have no trouble findin' him at Atlanta--he'll be in to callers for the next five years.”