Dear Sir:  I notice in the newspapers this morning that you have just been appointed first deputy commissioner of police and that you have been ordered to suppress gambling in New York.  For the love that you must still bear toward your own mother, listen to the story of a mother worn with anxiety for her only son, and if there is any justice or righteousness in this great city close up a gambling hell that is sending to ruin scores of our finest young men.  No doubt you know or have heard of my family—­the DeLongs are not unknown in Hew York.  Perhaps you have also heard of the losses of my son Percival at the Vesper Club.  They are fast becoming the common talk of our set.  I am not rich, Mr. Commissioner, in spite of our social position, but I am human, as human as a mother in any station of life, and oh, if there is any way, close up that gilded society resort that is dissipating our small fortune, ruining an only son, and slowly bringing to the grave a gray-haired widow, as worthy of protection as any mother of the poor whose plea has closed up a little poolroom or low policy shop.

Sincerely, (Mrs.) JULIA M. DELONG.

P.S.—­Please keep this confidential—­at least from my son Percival.

J.M.  DEL.

* * * * *

“Well,” said Kennedy, as he handed back the letter, “O’Connor, if you do it, I’ll take back all the hard things I’ve ever said about the police system.  Young DeLong was in one of my classes at the university, until he was expelled for that last mad prank of his.  There’s more to that boy than most people think, but he’s the wildest scion of wealth I have ever come in contact with.  How are you going to pull off your raid—­is it to be down through the skylight or up from the cellar?”

“Kennedy,” replied O’Connor in the same reproachful tone with which he had addressed me, “talk sense.  I’m in earnest.  You know the Vesper Club is barred and barricaded like the National City Bank.  It isn’t one of those common gambling joints which depend for protection on what we call ‘ice-box doors.’  It’s proof against all the old methods.  Axes and sledge-hammers would make no impression there.”

“Your predecessor had some success at opening doors with a hydraulic jack, I believe, in some very difficult raids,” put in Kennedy.

“A hydraulic jack wouldn’t do for the Vesper Club, I’m afraid,” remarked O’Connor wearily.  “Why, sir, that place has been proved bomb-proof—­bomb-proof, sir.  You remember recently the so-called ‘gamblers’ war’ in which some rivals exploded a bomb on the steps?  It did more damage to the house next door than to the club.  However, I can get past the outer door, I think, even if it is strong.  But inside—­you must have heard of it—­is the famous steel door, three inches thick, made of armor-plate.  It’s no use to try it at all unless we can pass that door with reasonable quickness.  All the evidence we shall get will be of an innocent