The Mystery Megapack

fifteen minutes. But he did not spend the other forty-five in the subway, “lifting a leather.” He wandered around the streets, keeping away from subway entrances lest temptation prove too great, and at the appointed time returned to the cigar store and assumed his duties.
    Detective Craddock, disgusted, went to another section of the city and sought to apprehend an evildoer.
    There came a lull in business in the middle of the afternoon, and then it was that a well-dressed young man entered and announced his intention of purchasing a box of cigars that retailed at fifteen dollars the box.
    Thubway Tham showed the goods eagerly, still determined to make an excellent record on his first day. He opened half a dozen boxes, that the prospective customer might select the particular color he desired. The telephone rang.
    Tham hurried back to the instrument, which was at one end of the counter. It was his employer who called, and he gave minute instructions regarding a package of goods that should be wrapped up for a certain customer. Thubway Tham made a note with a pencil on a sheet of paper, hung up the receiver, and turned toward his customer again.
    The customer was gone, and so were two boxes of the cigars, stock worth thirty dollars.
    Thubway Tham gasped at the nerve of it. He realized that the man had had time to mingle in the crowd outside and get away. And the cigars, being of that special brand, would be missed. Unless the money was in the cash register for them, Thubway Tham’s employer would think he had stolen them himself—for Tham remembered that the boss knew his past reputation.
    Thubway Tham sighed and extracted thirty dollars from his own pocket and put the money in the till. He was getting wages of fifteen dollars a week, the first day of work was not done, and it had cost him thirty-five dollars altogether.
    “It doth not pay to try to be honetht,” Tham told himself. “A crook ith the motht honetht perthon in the world. I have been thtung again!”
    He stored up anger against the man who had given him the counterfeit bill, and against the one who had stolen the cigars. Thubway Tham remembered faces well, and he promised to make those two men pay if ever he met them again.
    The evening rush began, and Tham’s, employer returned to aid him with the trade. For two hours Thubway Tham was kept busy continually, and then was told to go and get his dinner. He returned at the end of an hour, again successfully fighting away the temptation of the subway, and his boss went to get the evening meal.
    There entered a man who filled Thubway Tham’s heart with joy—until he remembered that he had turned honest.
    “Ith thith your firtht vithit to New York?” Tham asked as he offered a box of cigars.
    “How did you guess it?” the customer wanted to know.
    “Oh, I jutht guethed it!” Tham replied.
    “I’m here to see the sights.”
    “Yeth? You want to watch out for crookth.”
    Some sense of delicacy prevented Tham telling the visitor to the city that his appearance and manner were a standing invitation to pickpockets.
    “I’ve heard tell about these New York slickers, but they won’t get me, you betcha,” replied the customer.
    “I’ll bet thix thenth,” said Thubway Tham, “that you’ve got your coin in a wallet in your hip pocket.”
    “How’d you know that?” demanded the other suspiciously.
    “A man like you alwayth carrieth coin in a wallet in a hip pocket,” Tham told him. “It ith a thilly thing to do.”
    “Where’s the best place to carry it?”
    “In your inthide vetht pocket,” Tham replied. “And don’t pull it out where everybody can see it. And don’t get drunk.”
    “Free with your advice, young man, ain’t you?” the customer asked. “When I get so I can’t attend to my own affairs, I’ll retire to an old folks’ home.”
    “That tho?”
    “I reckon I’ve carried my wallet in a hip pocket a good many years, and nobody ever stole it yet.”
    “All right,” said Tham. “Far be it from me to thuggetht anything more.”
    The customer was mollified. He announced that he would shake dice with Tham for the cigars. Tham agreed, and they shook. The customer from out of town lost a couple of times, and then grew excited. The gambling fever entered the blood of Thubway Tham, too.
    They continued to shake dice, and the customer from out of town began winning. He won continually and consistently. Thubway Tham didn’t like that—he was getting the house in a