Fatty was nothing if not ingenuous. Micky did not try to hide his grin, for it would make no difference with Fatty. "Why, yes, I've read of that fellow," assented Micky, transferring a generous portion of the contents of Stearns' match box to his own pocket. "So he went into this rotten business, did he?" "Why, yes, he's stuck on it," explained Fatty. "You see he's got money." "Got money!" echoed Micky amazedly. "Gee whiz! then why--? Excuse me, Fatty, I'm asleep at the switch for fair." "I don't know," floundered Fatty helplessly, "but anyway, his father's got money. But Dick likes this business just the same. Been at it since he left college." "Then it is because he's got money, or his father has," agreed Micky. "I couldn't see it before, but you have made it very clear, Fatty. It's because he's got money or his father has. How stupid of me to be wingin' on that proposition! But if he didn't have money, or his father didn't, and he was doing this for a living like the rest of us instead of for the fun of it, he'd say to the devil with it, like the rest of us--and probably keep right at it, like the rest of us." In which words Micky gave utterance to a philosophic, universal truth. The voice of the city editor broke in upon the conference. "Say, Stearns," it called, "where's that meet?" "Most done, Mr. Harkins," responded Fatty in a panic, diving into his copy like a greased swimmer off the side of a yacht. "O'Byrn," called Harkins. "Here's word of a row down at Goldberg's saloon on Ash street, pretty serious. Thuggery. Slide down and get it quietly. You know they don't like the looks of notebooks around there," with a grim laugh. So Micky, whose memory was his notebook and a wonderfully accurate one when caution and cunning were demanded, hurried to the elevator. CHAPTER IV FISTS AND THE MAN Between Goldberg's and the polite in indulgence there was a great gulf fixed. From the north side, with its glittering palaces of Bacchus dispensing varied decoctions served by irreproachable chemists, you travelled south through a scattered series of lessening liquid glories. Finally you came to Goldberg's, where they took it straight in draughts of cheap, blistering stuff which maddened and incited to crime. Goldberg's was the dive of last resort for the submerged tenth. Its maw gaped hungrily, gorging upon the dregs it gathered in. Finally, when the victims were stripped of their miserable resources, they were spewed forth, with brains inflamed with the liquid damnation purveyed there. Ripe for any crime, they were foul fruit for the gaoler and a menace to men.