“Louie, when he finds out next day, makes an awful beef. He tells everybody he's goin' to hand it to me--goin' to cook me on sight, see? I hears of it, an' I hunts Louie up in Jack Sirocco's. “'Say, Louie,' I says, 'about that cookin' me. Th' bully way would be to come right now over to Hoboken, an' bump me off to-night. I'll go wit' youse. An' there won't be no hang-over, see; 'cause no one in Joisey'll care, an' no one in New York'll know.' “Do youse think Louie'll come? Not on your necktie! He didn't want me game--just wanted to talk, that's all. “'Not youse, Frank,' he said; 'I ain't gunnin' for youse. It's Nigger Mike; he's th' guy I'm goin' to croak. He oughtn't to have let youse have th' money.' No, of course, he don't go after Mike; that's simply his crawl. “Take it from me,” Frank concluded, “Louie wasn't th' goods. He'd run a bluff, but he never really hoited a guy in his whole life. As I says, he goes about frownin', an' glarin', an' givin' people th' fiery eye, an' t'rowin' a chest, an' lettin' it go broadcast that he's a hero. An' for a finish he's got w'at heroes get.” Such was the word of Sardinia Frank. When he fell with two bullets through his brain, and two more through his body, Louie had $170 in his pocket, $700 in his shoe, and $3,000 in the Bowery Bank. This prosperity needn't amaze. There was, for one thing, a racket reason to be hereinafter set forth. Besides, Pretty Agnes and Mollie Squint both walked the streets in Louie's loved behalf, and brought him all in the way of riches that came to their lure. Either was sure for five dollars a day, and Mollie Squint, who could graft a little, once came in with $800. Both Pretty Agnes and Mollie Squint most fiercely adored Louie, and well did he know how to play one loving heart against the other. Some say that of the pair he preferred Pretty Agnes. If so, he wasn't fool enough to let her find it out. She might have neglected her business to bask in his sweet society. Besides, when it came to that, Louie's heart was really given to a blonde burlesquer, opulent of charm. This _artiste_ snubbed and neglected Louie for the love of a stage manager. But she took and spent Louie's money, almost if not quite as fast as Pretty Agnes and Mollie Squint could bring it to him from the streets.