“Do you mean to say, you acquired your roll after leaving home tonight, eh?”

“To be perfectly honest with you, Mr. Moppup, I—­”

“Yollop, please.”

“—­Yollop, I found this money in front of a theater up town,—­just after the police nabbed a friend of mine who had frisked some guy of his roll and had to drop it in a hurry.”

“And you want me to keep it for you till you are free again,—­is that it?”

“Just as soon as the trial is over and I get my sentence, I’ll send a pal of mine around to you with a note and you can turn it over to him.  All I’m after, is to keep some lawyer from gettin’—­”

“What would you say, Cassius, if I were to tell you that I am a lawyer?”

“I’d say you’re a darned fool to confess when you don’t have to,” replied Mr. Smilk succinctly.

Mr. Yollop chuckled.  “Well, I’m not a lawyer.  Nevertheless, I must decline to act as a depository for your obviously ill-gotten gains.”

“Gee, that’s tough,” lamented Mr. Smilk.  “Wouldn’t you just let me drop it behind something or other,—­that book case over there say,—­and I’ll promise to send for it some night when you’re out,—­”

“No use, Cassius,” broke in Mr. Yollop, firmly.  “I’m deaf to your entreaties.  Permit me to paraphrase a very well-known line.  ’None so deaf as him who will not hear.’”

“If I speak very slowly and distinctly don’t you think you could hear me if I was to offer to split the wad even with you,—­fifty-fifty,—­no questions asked?” inquired Cassius, rather wistfully.

“See here,” exclaimed Mr. Yollop, irritably; “you got me in this position and I want you to get me out of it.  While I’ve been squatting here listening to you, they’ve both gone to sleep and I’m hanged if I can move ’em.  I never would have dreamed of sitting on them if you hadn’t put the idea into my head, confound you.”

“Let ’em hang down for a while,” suggested Mr. Smilk.  “That’ll wake ’em up.”

“Easier said than done,” snapped the other.  He managed, however, to get his benumbed feet to the floor and presently stood up on them.  Mr. Smilk watched him with interest as he hobbled back and forth in front of the desk.  “They’ll be all right in a minute or two.  By Jove, I wish my sister could have heard all you’ve been saying about prisons and paroles and police.  I ought to have had sense enough to call her.  She’s asleep at the other end of the hall.”

“I hate women,” growled Mr. Smilk.  “Ever since that pie-faced dame got me chucked out of Sing Sing,—­say, let me tell you something else she done to me.  She gave me an address somewhere up on the East Side and told me to come and see her as soon as I got out.  Well, I hadn’t been out a week when I went up to see her one night,—­or, more strictly speakin’, one morning about two o’clock.  What do you think?  It was an empty house, with a ‘for rent’ sign on it.  I found out the next day she’d moved