"Nifty old bird, the Big Un," said Mr. Flint, squinting his eyes. "And," he went on, reflectively, "he's sure got your number in this burg. Take you by and large, you lawabiders are a real funny sort, ain't you? Now, there's Inglesby, handing out the little kids their diplomas come school-closing, and telling 'em to be real good, and maybe when they grow up he'll have a job in pickle for 'em--work like a mule in a treadmill, twelve hours, no unions, _and_ the coroner to sit on the remains, free and gratis, for to ease the widow's mind. Inglesby's got seats in all your churches--first-aid to the parson's pants-pockets. "Inglesby's right there on the platform at all your spiel-fests, smirking at the women and telling 'em not to bother their nice little noddles about anything but holding down their natural jobs of being perfect ladies--ain't he and other gents just like him always right there holding down _their_ natural jobs of protecting 'em and being influenced to do what's right? Sure he is! And nobody howls for the hook! You let him be It--him with a fist in the state's jeans up to the armpit! "Look here, that Mayne kid's dead right. It's you good guys that are to blame. We little bad ones see you kowtowing to the big worse ones, and we get to thinking _we_ can come in under the wires easy winners, too. However, let me tell you something while I'm in the humor to gas. It's this: _sooner or later everybody gets theirs_. My sort and Inglesby's sort, we all get ours. Duck and twist and turn and sidestep all we want, at the end it's right there waiting for us, with a loaded billy up its sleeve: _Ours!_ Some fine day when we're looking the other way, thinking we've even got it on the annual turnout of the cops up Broadway for class, why, Ours gets up easy on its hind legs, spits on its mitt, and hands us exactly what's coming to us, biff! and we wake up sitting on our necks in the middle of day-before-yesterday and year-after-next. I got mine. If I was you I wouldn't be too cock-sure that kid don't give Inglesby his, some of these days, good and plenty." "Maybe so," said I, cautiously. "Gee, that'd be fly-time for all the good guys in this tank, wouldn't it?" he grinned. "Sure! I can see 'em now, patting the bump on their beams where they think the brain-patch sprouts, and handing out hunks of con to the Lord about his being right on his old-time job of swatting sinners in their dinners. Yet they'll all of them go right on leading themselves up to be trimmed by the very next holdup that's got the nerve to do them! Friend, believe a goat when he tells you that you stillwater-and-greenpasture sheep are some bag of nuts!" "Thank you," said I, with due meekness.