In speaking of the cook ovens I may say that it was there the word “yegg” originated. It has not yet been locked in the dictionary, but it has a place in our language and it’s about time its derivation was settled once and for all. It is a corruption of “yekk,” a word from one of the many dialects spoken in Chinatown, and it means beggar. When a hypo or beggar approached a Chinaman to ask for something to eat, he was greeted with the exclamation, “yekk man, yekk man.” The underworld is quick to seize upon strange words, and the bums and hypos in Chinatown were calling themselves yeggmen years before the term was taken out on the road and given currency by eastbound beggars. In no time it had a verb hung on it, and to yegg meant to beg. The late William A. Pinkerton was responsible for its changed meaning. His business consisted largely of asking questions and necessarily he acquired much misinformation. A burglar with some humor fell into Pinkerton’s hands and when asked who was breaking open the country “jugs” he whispered to the detective that it was the yeggs. Investigation convinced Pinkerton that there were a lot of men drifting about the country who called themselves yeggs. The word went into a series of magazine articles Pinkerton was writing at the time and was fastened upon the “box” men. Its meaning has since widened until now the term “yegg” includes all criminals whose work is “heavy.” Sanc returned in a very hostile frame of mind. “We’ve been bilked, kid. It was a French imitation. Been on the market ten years. I sold it to Tom Dennison, who runs the Wasatch gambling house in ‘The Lake,’ for a hundred and fifty dollars, just enough to pay expenses. If you locate a few more capers like that you’ll put us in the poorhouse.” I reported my findings in Montgomery Street, and Sanc after looking them over carefully pronounced two of the getaways feasible. “Kid,” he said, “I read in the papers some time ago that a man named Charlie Rice, in New York City, put on a cheap, black alpaca coat, put his cap in his pocket, and with a pencil on his ear walked into a bank and behind the counter where there were twenty clerks at work. Unnoticed, he picked up twenty-five thousand dollars in bank notes and walked out. “That suggested to me that I can walk into this jewelry store some evening before Christmas when they will have an extra force of clerks employed, and go behind the counter if I am dressed like a clerk. If I can get behind a counter you can surely get in front of it. I will put a tray of stones out for your inspection, and you will walk out with it. We will go over it carefully now.