This is not so much to chronicle the bumping off of Crazy Butch, as to
open a half-gate of justice in the maligned instance of the Darby Kid.
There is subdued excitement in and about the Central Office. There is
more excitement, crossed with a color of bitterness, in and about the
Chatham Club. The Central Office, working out a tip, believes it has cut
the trail of Harry the Soldier, who, with Dopey Benny, is wanted for the
killing of Crazy Butch. The thought which so acrimoniously agitates
the Chatham Club is “Who rapped?” with the finger of jealous suspicion
pointing sourly at the Darby Kid.
That you be not misled in an important particular, it is well perhaps to
explain that the Darby Kid is a girl--a radiant girl--and in her line
as a booster, a girl of gold. She deeply loved Crazy Butch, having first
loved Harry the Soldier. If she owned a fault, it was that in matters of
the heart she resembled the heroine of the flat boatman's muse.