Billy Durgin was excited half an hour later by noting the behavior of the first strange gentleman from the East as his eyes fell upon this second.  He threw both hands into the air, where they engaged in rapid horizontal shakings from his pliant wrists, and in hushed gutturals exclaimed, “My God, my God!” in his own fashion of speech, which was reproduced admirably for me by my informant.  Billy was thus confirmed in his earlier belief that the first strange gentleman was a house-breaker badly wanted somewhere, and he now surmised that the newcomer must be a detective on his trail.  But a close watch on their meeting, a little later in the evening, seemed to contradict this engaging hypothesis.  The second stranger emerged from the dining room, where he had been served with supper, and as he shut the door of that banqueting hall, Billy, standing by, heard him, too, call upon his Maker.  He called only once, but it was in a voice so full of feeling as to make Billy suspect that he was remembering something unpleasant.

At this point the newcomer had glanced up to behold the first strange gentleman, and Billy held his breath, expecting to witness a sensational capture.  To his unspeakable disgust the supposed sleuth grinned affably at his supposed quarry and said:  “Ah, Hyman!  Is the stuff any good?”

“How did you find it out?” asked the first strange gentleman.

The other smiled winningly.  “Why, I dropped into your place the other day, and that beautiful daughter-in-law of yours mentioned incidentally where you’d gone and what for.  She’s a good soul, Hyman, bright, and as chatty as she can be.”

“Ach!  That Malke!  She goes back right off to De Lancey Street, where she belongs,” said the first stranger, plainly irritated.

“How did you find the stuff, Hyman?”

“Have you et your supper yet?”

“Yes—­’tisn’t Kosher, is it?  How did you find the stuff?”

“No, it ain’t Kosher—­nothing ain’t Kosher!”

“It’s a devilish sight worse, though.  How did you find the stuff, Hyman?”

The one called Hyman here seemed to despair of putting off this query.

“No good!  No good!—­not a decent piece in the lot!  I pledge you my word as a gentleman I wouldn’t pay the freight on it to Fourth Avenue!” Billy remarked that the gentleman said “pletch” for pledge and “afanoo” for avenue.

The second stranger, hearing this, at once became strangely cheerful and insisted upon shaking hands with the first one.

“Fine, Hyman, fine!  I’m delighted to hear you say so.  Your words lift a load of doubt from my mind.  It came to me in there just now that I might be incurring that supper for nothing but my sins!”

“Have your choke,” said Hyman, a little bitterly.

“I have, Hyman, I have had my ’choke’!” said James Walsingham Price, with a glance of disrelish toward the dining room.

It seemed clear to Billy Durgin, who reported this interview to me in a manner of able realism, that these men were both crooks of the first water.