"Tickled!" Jimmy sawed the air. "Tickled! You lunatic! Can't you see what you've done?"
"I've got dem," said Spike, whose mind was not readily receptive of new ideas. It seemed to him that Jimmy missed the main point.
"Didn't I tell you there was nothing doing when you wanted to take those things the other day?"
Spike's face cleared. As he had suspected, Jimmy had missed the point.
"Why, say, boss, yes. Sure! But dose was little, dinky t'ings. Of course, youse wouldn't stand fer swipin' chicken-feed like dem. But dese is different. Dese di'monds is boids. It's one hundred t'ousand plunks fer dese."
"Spike," said Jimmy with painful calm.
"Huh?"
"Will you listen for a moment?"
"Sure."
"I know it's practically hopeless. To get an idea into your head, one wants a proper outfit—drills, blasting-powder, and so on. But there's just a chance, perhaps, if I talk slowly. Has it occurred to you, Spike, my bonny, blue-eyed Spike, that every other man, more or less, in this stately home of England, is a detective who has probably received instructions to watch you like a lynx? Do you imagine that your blameless past is a sufficient safeguard? I suppose you think that these detectives will say to themselves, 'Now, whom shall we suspect? We must leave out Spike Mullins, of course, because he
