Detective Bob Bridger — page 212: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

DETECTIVE BOB BRIDGER. 205 betray him, and knowing that he could not reduce himself in size, he had so padded himself with the tools to be used, and otherwise, that his overcoat barely buttoned about the huge mass. He had also darkened his gray beard, hair, and eye- brows with a black cosmetic. A broad slouch hat covered his head, and at a casual glance any one would have set him down as a German lager vender, swelled to bursting by a too liberal patronage of his own goods. At length he waddled off slowly, asa very fat man might, shaping his way to the eastward, as “ Jack, the Fork,” had done. At ten o'clock the four men met in the dark shadow of a church, near where East Broadway intersects Market Sheant. A policeman, whose beat lay through East Broadway, had barely passed toward Chatham square, and the bur- glars had paused to give him time to go his way and get well out of theirs. The night was raw and black, and a drizzling rain was falling. Few people were upon the streets, and East Broadway was dark and deserted. | Fortune in this regard had favored the dark scheme on hand, and, as Goucher expressed it, the job” bade fair to be a “‘walk over.” “Suppose,” said “Jack, the Fork,” ‘‘that after all’s done the risk will have been run, and no ‘swag’ visible 2” “Jack, the Fork’s” line of business, as we have seen, had been investigating the contents of careless people’s pockets. He had never “ given a hand” in a burglary before, and he evidently felt ill at ease in attempting the role of a burglar. Goucher was quick to perceive this, and he felt it to be his duty to give Jack some encouragement. “Bah!” he ejaculated. ‘‘I know the ‘boodle’s there, ae Il know the racket’s safe. If I didn’t know it was safe, and didn’t know the ‘swag’ was there, and that they’d be no after-claps, do you think I’d be here? Not much! No- body has less love for lookin’ through iron bars than my- self, and all of you know that.” “Who told you the ‘boodle’ was there?” “Jack, the Fork,” ventured to ask. ‘“Who told me, eh?” €o comicbooks: wo