the indulgent new head of the Detective Bureau extended to him with his further privilege of a special officer's license. For this empty honor "Batty" Blake—for as "Batty" he was known to nearly all the cities of America—did an occasional bit of "stooling" for the Central Office, a tip as to a stray yeggman's return, a hint as to a "peterman's" activities in the shopping crowds, a whisper that a till tapper had failed to respect the Department's dead-lines.
Yet nobody took Batty Blake seriously. It was said, indeed, that once, in the old régime, he had been a big man in the Department. But that Department had known many changes, and where life is unduly active, memory is apt to be unduly short.
The patrolman tapping on the gas-pipe arch with his idle night-stick merely knew that Batty was placid and inoffensive, that he never obstructed traffic and always carried a license-badge. He knew that in damp weather Batty limped and confessed that his leg pained him a bit, from an old hurt he 'd had in the East.
