Crazy Barry, one hand in McTafife's hair, had drawn the latter's head across his knee, the better to attend to the throat-cutting. Convinced, however, by the words of Jacobs, he let the head, throat all unslashed, fall heavily to the floor. After which, first wiping the blood from his knife on McTafife's coat--for he had an instinct to be neat--he lam-mistered for parts unknown, while McTafife was conveyed to the New York Hospital. This chanced in the Sixth Avenue temple of entertainment kept by the late Paddy the Pig. Once out of the hospital and into the street, McTafife and the fair Leoni found no trouble in being all the world to one another. Crazy Barry was a thing of the past and, since the Central Office dicks wanted him, likely to remain so. McTafife was of the swell mob. He worked with Goldie Louie, Fog-eye Howard and Brother Bill Orr. Ask any Central Office bull, half learned in his trade of crook-catcher, and he'll tell you that these names are of a pick-purse peerage. McTaffe himself was the stinger, and personally pinched the poke, or flimped the thimble, or sprung the prop, of whatever boob was being trimmed. The others, every one a star, were proud to act as his stalls; and that, more than any Central Office assurance, should show how near the top was McTaffe in gonoph estimation. Every profession has its drawbacks, and that of picking pockets possesses several. For one irritating element, it is apt to take the practitioner out of town for weeks on end. Some sucker puts up a roar, perhaps, and excites the assiduities of the police; or there is a prize fight at Reno, or a World's Fair at St. Louis, or a political convention at Chicago, or a crowd-gathering tour by some notable like Mr. Roosevelt or Mr. Taft, which gives such promise of profit that it is not to be refused. Thus it befell that McTaffe, with his mob, was greatly abroad in the land, leaving Leoni deserted and alone. Once McTaffe remained away so long that it caused Leoni uneasiness, if not alarm. “Mack's fell for something,” was the way she set forth her fears to Big Kitty: “You can gamble he's in hock somewheres, or I'd have got the office from him by wire or letter long ago.” When McTaffe at last came back, his face exhibited pain and defeat. He related how the mob had been caught in a jam in Chihuahua, and Goldie Louie lagged. “The rest of the fleet managed to make a getaway,” said McTaffe, “all but poor Goldie. Those Greasers have got him right, too; he's cinched to do a couple of spaces sure. When I reached El Paso, I slimmed me roll for five hundred bucks, an' hired him a mouthpiece. But what good is a mouthpiece when there ain't the shadow of a chance to spring him?” “So Goldie got a rumble, did he?” said Leoni, with a half sigh. Her tones were pensive to the verge of tears; since her love for Goldie was almost if not quite equal to the love she bore McTaffe.