Nigger Mike proceeded to lay bare the causes of that queerness. While engaged in a joint debate--years ago, it was--with a gentleman given as much to sudden petulances as to positive views, he had lost three of his teeth. Their place had been artifically but not artistically supplied. “An' lately they've been feelin' funny,” explained Mike, alluding to the supplemental teeth, “an' I toins 'em over to th' Doc to fix. That guy who made 'em for me foist must have been a bum dentist. An' at that, w'at do you t'ink he charges? I'm a Dutchman if he don't lash me to th' mast for forty bucks! He says th' gold plate is wort' twenty.” “Well, Mike,” said Nannie Miller, who'd been listening, “I don't want to make you sore, but on the level you talk like your mouth is full of mush. I'd make th' Doc come through wit' 'em as soon as I could.” “He says he'll bring 'em in to-morry,” returned Mike. “It's ten to one you don't see 'em for a week,” declared the pessimistic St. Louis Bill. “Youse can't tell nothin' about them hop-heads. They say 'to-morry' when they mean next year.” St. Louis Bill, being virtuously superior to opium, never lost a chance to speak scornfully of those who couldn't make that boast. Mike, at the discouraging view expressed, became doleful. “Say,” he observed, “I'd look like a sucker, wouldn't I, if anything happens th' Doc, an' I don't get 'em?” St. Louis Bill assured Mike that he would indeed look like a sucker, and re-declared his conviction--based upon certain occult creepings and crawlings in his bones--that Mike had seen the last of those teeth. “Take my steer,” said St. Louis Bill in conclusion; “treat them teeth you gives th' Doc as a dead issue, an' go get measured for some more. Twenty dollars wort' of gold, you says! It ain't no cinch but the Doc's hocked 'em for hop.” “Nothin' to that!” returned Mike, decisively. “Th' Doc's a square guy. Them teeth is all safe enough. Only, as you says, bein' he hits the pipe, he may be slow about chasin' in wit' 'em.” While Nigger Mike and his guests are in talk, run your eye over the scene. Those citizens of Gangland assembled about the Chatham Club tables would have made a study, and mayhap a chapter, for Lombroso. Speaking generally, they are a stunted litter, these gangmen, and seldom stand taller than five feet four. Their weight wouldn't average one hundred and twenty pounds. They are apt to run from the onslaught of an outsider. This is not perhaps from cowardice; but they dislike exertion, even the exertion of fighting, and unless it be to gain money or spoil, or a point of honor is involved--as in their duels and gang wars--they back away from trouble. In their gang battles, or when fighting the police, their strategy is to lie flat on the ground and shoot. Thus they save themselves a clubbing, and the chances from hostile lead are reduced.