Armitage and Gaines between them could only guess and speculate until the shift foreman from the paintworks breached the police cordon surrounding the blaze and confronted Finlay direct. Paint deliveries to their wholesalers were done fortnightly […]

The Baron bowed. This was a new complication, but it was all in the day's work. Of course, the whole thing was plain enough. Fatty Welch was working some swell guys who thought he was a real high-roller. Maybe he was going to pull off some kind of a job that very evening. Perhaps this big chap in the swagger flannels was one of the gang. Barney was thinking hard. Well, he'd take the tip and play the hand out.

The juvenile members of most of our seaside communities are much given to crab-fishing, and may be seen from early morn to evening late, dangling their legs over some convenient rock, sea-wall, or landing-steps, and with a piece of twine to which a dainty morsel of fish offal has been tied, doing their best to induce some greedy young crabling to grasp it with his nippers, …

Further, many of these veteranos had earned their spurs, so to speak, and were respected and looked up to as male role models, even though they no longer were active bangers or slangers.