Edgar Rice Burroughs: The Efficiency Expert

17. CHAPTER XVII. JIMMY ON THE JOB. (continued)

"Well, I've seen you before," said O'Donnell, "and ye put one over on me that time all roight, I can see now. I don't know what your game was, but you and the Lizard played it pretty slick when you could pull the wool over Patrick O'Donnell's eyes the way ye done."

"Oh," said Jimmy, "I've got you now. You're the bull who interfered with my friend and me on Randolph and La Salle way back last July."

"I am," said O'Donnell, "and I thought ye was a foine young gentleman, and you are a foine one," he said with intense sarcasm.

"Go away and leave us alone," said the girl. "We're not doing anything. We ate in here last night together. This man is perfectly respectable. He isn't what you think him, at all."

"I'm not going to pinch him," said O'Donnell; "I ain't got nothin' to pinch him for, but the next time I see him I'll know him."

"Well," said the girl, "are you going to beat it or are you going to stick around here bothering us all evening? There hasn't anybody registered a complaint against me in here."

"Naw," said O'Donnell, "they ain't, but you want to watch your step or they will."

"All right," said the girl, "run along and sell your papers." And she turned again to Jimmy, and as though utterly unconscious of the presence of the police officer, she remarked, "That big stiff gives me a pain. He's the original Buttinsky Kid."

O'Donnell flushed. "Watch your step, young lady," he said as he turned and walked away.

"I thought." said Jimmy. "that it was the customary practise to attempt to mollify the guardians of the law."