A certain amount of steam is good for a boiler, but too much spells disaster. Tham blew up! His fists whirled through the air. He sprang. Those fists struck home. Snoopy Sallon, fighting in self-defense, imagined that there was a wildcat in the room. Tham was small, but wrath had made him powerful.
“There!” he said, as he smashed a fist into Sallon’s white face. “That ith for Craddock! And there! That ith becauthe you thtole from me. I’ll thhow you, you thimp!”
Sallon squealed and started to fight back. Under ordinary conditions, he undoubtedly would have won. But Tham was fighting the battle of the righteously indignant, and he had no mercy. Back and forth across the room they fought, tipping over the table and the chairs. Now and then Tham smashed his man back against a wall and delivered a couple of blows before Sallon could evade him again. Sallon’s face became splotched with red. Great bruises already were standing out upon it. Tham battered it without cessation, sent in a few body blows by way of good measure, beat down his man until Sallon was crouched and whimpering in a corner, earnestly begging for an end of it.
“There, you double-crother!” Tham gasped out. “Put on your hat! Come with me, you pup!”
Sallon scarcely knew what was happening.
Tham crushed his hat down on his head, gripped him by an arm, and led him forth. He rushed Sallon down the first flight of stairs, thrust him through half a dozen lodgers standing there open-eyed and wondering, and hustled him on down toward the street.
“Double-croth me, will you!” Tham said in the victim’s ear. “A dirty crook, you are! Thteal from me while I wath hidin’ you! And thhot Craddock! Thhot a better man than you’ll ever be even if he ith a dick! You double-crothin’, bow-legged, knock-kneed, blind, deaf and dumb bunch of nothin’!”
Tham yanked his man down the remaining few steps and out upon the walk. The detective was waiting.
“Here he ith!” said Thubway Tham. “Here ith Thnoopy Thallon, the thcoundrel who thhot Detective Craddock thith afternoon! Take him along, offither!”
“You can bet that I’ll just do that little thing,” the detective declared.
And the manner in which he gripped Sallon’s shoulder made that worthy wish that Thubway Tham was the man to have him in charge.
Then Tham adjusted his cravat, brushed the sleeves of his coat, dusted his hands, and tilted his cap to one side of his head. He glared at the curious ones who stood near at hand—and walked up the street. And as he walked he muttered speech to himself.
“Now I’ll go to the hothpital and thee Craddock,” Thubway Tham told himself. “And I’ll tell him onthe more that the radio might help a man out when he leatht expecth it!”
THUBWAY THAM’S HONESTY
The subway station at Times Square, as thousands of persons know, is a labyrinthine puzzle invented by the devil to make men mad.
Save that it is reasonably clean, partially ventilated, and does not reek with the fumes of opium, it resembles nothing so much as a series of underground dens in some ancient Chinatown. One expects to hear weird music and singsong talk and see slave girls peering through bars.
There are countless gates and aisles and runways and flights of steps. A puzzled stranger expecting to emerge into daylight at Forty-second Street finds that he has emerged at Thirty-ninth and needs to take a surface car to reach his destination. It is an easy matter to descend the wrong steps, get upon the wrong platform, hop into the wrong car of the wrong train, and reach the Polo Grounds when intending to visit the Battery.
But there are some men endowed with an added sense who descend into this labyrinth and subconsciously find the right spot without delay or questioning. Thubway Tham was such a man. On the streets above he might become confused, but never in the big bore.
And on this particular morning about the hour of eleven, he left the bewilderment called Broadway and plunged down a flight of steps, his nostrils dilated, drinking in the peculiar air of the subway as a returning exile might drink in the air of his native land.
Thubway Tham, for the space of three days, had been confined to his room in the lodging house conducted by Mr. “Nosey” Moore, the physician in attendance having declared that Tham had a touch of influenza and would better remain in bed for a few hours.
The doctor had turned kind this day and had told Tham that he might go abroad and mingle with men again, and Tham had not delayed. He had breakfasted at his usual restaurant, had prowled around Madison Square for a time expecting to meet with Detective Craddock and indulge in repartee, and had been disappointed.
Detective Craddock did not put in an appearance. Thubway Tham, after waiting in the Square a reasonable time, had walked slowly northward until Times Square was reached. And there he had rushed down the steps and into the subway, as has been stated.
Thubway Tham knew exactly what he intended doing. He would catch a downtown Seventh Avenue express, preferably getting into some crowded car. If the gods were kind, be would locate some prosperous gentleman with a fat wallet, watch for his chance, and “lift a leather.” He hoped to be able to celebrate his return to work by making an excellent haul.
Down the steps he went, to follow the crowd through a passage and down another flight of steps. Subconsciously, Thubway Tham went in the right direction and approached the correct platform. He was just in time to see the tail lights of a downtown express disappearing in the distance. That is another peculiarity of the subway—a person always is just in time to see his train disappearing in the distance.
Thubway Tham did not care. The next express, he judged, would be more crowded anyway; and Tham, contrary to other citizens, preferred crowded trains. So he wandered up and down the platform, watching the throng, looking for a prospective victim, and waiting for the next train.
A touch on his shoulder. Thubway Tham turned slowly and deliberately, to find grinning Detective Craddock standing beside him.
“Tho I thee your ugly fathe yet again,” Tham said, wrinkling his nose.
“You certainly do, Tham,” Detective Craddock said, “But I have not seen yours, it seems, for several days.”
“I have been thick.”
“How is this?” the detective questioned.
“I have had the influentha,” Tham told him. “The doctor made me thtay in bed for three dayth. It wath the hardetht work I ever did in my life.”
“Um!” Detective Craddock granted. “When it comes to work, Tham, I fear me that you fail to qualify as an expert.”
“Neither of uth ith an ecthpert at it,” Thubway Tham returned, grinning.
“Changing the subject,” said Detective Craddock, “it pains me to find you in the subway, Tham. Whenever you ride in our beloved subway, it generally follows that some irate gent makes his appearance at police headquarters and relates that he has had his wallet lifted and all the currency therein.”
“Tho?”
“So!” said Detective Craddock. “Tham, old-timer, you have been having things your own way for some time now. But the end approaches rapidly.”
“Yeth?”
“Yes! Word has gone forth from the powers that be that one Thubway Tham must have his nefarious activities curbed.”
“Craddock, if I could talk like you, I’d get me a thoapbox and thtand on it at noon down at Madithon Thquare and try to reform the world with wordth,” Thubway Tham declared. “When it cometh to thlingin’ language, you win the fur-lined ithe pick. Ath an orator, Craddock, you are the zebra’th thtripeth, the frog’th whithkerth, and the cat’th eyebrowth.”
“Tham, you amaze me!”
“You talk a lot, Craddock, and often—but you never thay anything.”
“No?”