HIS morning Thubway Tham arose to the deadly monotony of another day. Certainly there was nothing to indicate that this day would be in any way different from hundreds that had gone before. Tham did not even feel a “hunch.”
Having bathed and dressed, he stood at the window in his room in the lodging house conducted by Mr. “Nosey” Moore, a gentleman known to the police as a retired burglar, and looked at the scene spread below him. A moment he looked, and then his lips curled in a sneer of deep disgust.
“Thame old thunthhine,” Thubway Tham declared to himself. “Thame old alley. Thame roofth and chimneyth. Thame river in the dithtance. Alwayth the thame. There ith never anything happening. Life ith the bunk. I have a notion to get mythelf arrethted jutht to get a thrill!”
Of course Tham did not mean the last statement. Being a well-known dip who once had done time in the big gray house up the river, Tham knew that another conviction would result in a long sentence and possibly put an effectual end to his career. But he wanted a thrill just the same. And it developed during the day that Fate, schemer of all things, had got Thubway Tham in this frame of mind so that he would recognize to its full value the thrill when it came.
Tham descended the rickety stairs, growled a morning greeting to Nosey Moore, and went out upon the street. It was a beautiful day, but Thubway Tham failed to appreciate it, simply because there had been so many beautiful days recently.
He walked down the street toward the little restaurant where he generally ate his breakfast, entered, sat at his usual table, and gave his usual order to the usual waitress. More deadly monotony! But Tham did not think of the expedient of going to another restaurant and encountering something new.
Slowly he ate and glanced at the morning newspaper the waitress had put at his elbow. He regarded the front page and found nothing there to interest him deeply, not being concerned with national affairs or the latest scandal. He glanced at the sporting page, took a look at some of the big advertisements, and finally turned to the editorial page.
This was the working of Fate again. Tham rarely glanced at an editorial page. He had the idea, not without foundation in fact, that most newspaper editorial pages are a great waste of white paper and ink.
On the editorial page he found a short syndicated article by a famous writer who perhaps had instructed his secretary to write the thing and afterward had signed it without reading what had been written. The article was to the effect that there is a moment in the life of every individual when there comes a great thrill, a supreme second, one always to be remembered.
“Thith ith the bunk!” Tham told himself, “There ith no thuch thing ath a thrill any more. My goodneth! If there ith a great thrill, I never have theen one. Thith kind of thtuff maketh me thick!”
The little waitress stopped beside him and dropped a check on the table.
“No thuch thing ath a thrill!” Tham repeated, this time aloud.
“Oh, I don't know!” the little remarked, glancing down at him.
Thubway Tham looked up and grinned. “Tho you want to argue with me about it, do you?” he asked. “I thuppothe you have had a great thrill thometime?”
“You said it, Mr. Tham.”
“Then you are a very lucky girl,” Tham told her. “You are the luckietht girl in the world, I thuppothe. Where doeth a man go to get one of thethe thrill thingth?”
“I got mine,” replied the little waitress, “by falling in love a few years ago.”
“My goodneth!” Tham gasped. “Of all the thilly rot! Well, I'll never get a great thrill that way. Any time I fall for a thkirt it will be a cold day in Augutht—a mighty cold day with thnow on the ground and ithe on men'th whithkerth.”
“Uh-huh!” the little waitress said. “I've heard guys talk like that before. The tougher they are, the harder they fall. I knew a big business man once who used to make his clerks flinch when he talked. And along came a little slip of a girl without any sense at all and hardly any good looks, and he fell for her like a ton of cast iron.”
“The thilly ath!”
“And let me tell you this, Mr. Tham—when you do fall, you're going to fall hard. I've seen your kind before. Little old Cupid is probably poisoning an arrow for you this minute.”
“Talk thenthe,” Thubway Tham begged. “Do I look like a thaphead? Me fall in love? Where do you get that thtuff? No thkirt for mine. Thkirtth cauthe motht of the trouble in the world.”