"Sure, we will be friends!" she said. "I haven't ever--that is--I'll be glad of your friendship, I am sure, Mr. Pippin. And now I will say good night, and hoping you will sleep well and no disturbance for anyone." * * * * * Having witnessed two _tête-à-têtes_, we may as well glance at a third, which was held about the same time, though in a place wholly unlike either rose-shaded parlor or shining kitchen. A back room in a slum grog shop: dingy, dirty, reeking with stale tobacco, steeped in fumes of vilest liquor. Some of the liquor is on the table now, in two glasses; some of the tobacco is in the pipes, which two men are smoking as they sit, one sprawling, the other hunched, in their respective chairs. An elderly man, low-browed, heavy-jawed, the brutal-criminal type that every prison knows; the other young, slight, narrow-chested, with a crooked nose and small eyes set too near together. "All ready for to-night?" the elder was saying, in a hoarse, whispering voice, that matched his face. "What's your hurry, Bill? I'm takin' things easy these days. I'm gettin' on in years, and when I take on a night job, I want to be sure it's all slick as grease. What's your hurry?" The other clenched his fist and brought it down on the table with an oath. "I want Pippin!" he said. "That's what I'm after. You can have the swag, Dad; it's all straight, I tell you--silver locked up nights in the sideboard, locks that a kid could pick. No money kep' in the house, but good silver; you can have the whole bag, but let--me--get--my hands on Pippin!" The elder ruffian looked at him curiously. The little eyes were aflame with something more than greed and cunning. "Go slow, Bill!" said the affectionate father. "Go slow and easy! You don't want to get twenty years for a job like this." "I'd take hell," said the other, "to smash his face for him!" "That's it, is it?" the older man whistled, and a grim smile broke over his countenance. "He did maul you bad, Bill, no mistake. Not that you ever were a beauty!" he added musingly. "Your mother's folks is all homely. Well, if that's all you want, to get even with Pippin, why not happen on him in that lane some night and--hey? Then we could take our time about gettin' the swag, and he be out of the way, see?" "That ain't all!" The young man's face flamed with passion as he bent forward. "I want to get him _there_, Dad! I want to show her--to show them folks--that he's a crook from way back. Didn't I tell you he'd got old Nipper Crewe's wheel? Goin' about smilin' and singin'--damn him!--workin' his way in smooth as oil, and all the time fitted out with the best set of tools in the city. He's ben watchin' the house all the week, an' I've a hunch he's there to-night. I want to show him up! I want they should see his face when I do it--see it before I smash--" He choked with passion; his upper lip curled back, and his breath hissed through the bared teeth.