"Young man, what do I know about tumblers?"
"Nothing, ma'am, I'm forgetting you're not with us. If you want to know about Gentleman George, he's rolled up two or three fortunes by bank-breaking, but he's such a confounded gambler that he out-points himself."
"Where is he now?" articulated Miss Gastonguay, with difficulty.
"Now that's one thing, ma'am, I can't tell you. I'm sorry to disoblige a lady, but it can't be helped."
"Has he repented? Is he leading an honest life?"
"Yes, ma'am, just now he has to. The police are after him again. He breaks out in spots, then he lies low. For the last few years you might have heard of him in California, in Mexico, in Europe, always in big hauls, always looting something worth looting. There was the California Star Bank Vault robbery where he got a clean half million, the Belgium Bank affair--"
"Do they never catch him? Is he never shot at,--hurt?"
"Catch him, yes, but no prison holds him. He's got good friends. After the California swoop they shut him up in jail, but he had a partner outside who had a masked hole made in the gate of the jail. Next day Gentleman George broke loose from a marching line of convicts in the jail yard, made a dash for the hole, jumped into a wagon his partner had waiting, and got out of the way in double quick time."
Miss Gastonguay had had about all she could endure. "Daybreak is coming," she said, abruptly. "You must get away; is there anything I can do for you?"
"You could give me ten thousand a year," he said, composedly; "you are a rich woman, you would never miss it."
"I will give you enough to get to some philanthropists, who will teach you to live an honest life."
"Thank you, ma'am,--we've got enough of them in New York. They go to the low-down streets and preach, 'Lead an honest life, and you will star it through the world,' but no fellow those praying folks ever took has got as high up in the sky as Gentleman George."
"He's the biggest man in America," said her companion, with quiet enthusiasm.
Her convulsed face showed that she pitied him, and with his small and ferret-like eyes gleaming approvingly on her he continued, "You're a lady, ma'am, and I'll tell you what I'm aiming at. I don't want to give up this life. If I did, I could earn ten thousand dollars to-morrow by going to the detectives in New York and splitting on Gentleman George. But I'm not anxious to play spy. I'd be found out, and I've just been watching a young crook, that turned State's evidence in a Boston jail, come out and go crazy on account of the whole gang turning against him. He slunk round the streets like a sick cat, and he squealed in his sleep. No one spoke to him, and he died in the horrors."