Well, this sounds very nonsensical to me in such a situation, and it makes no impression
whatever on John Ignatius Junior. He keeps on squalling, and I judge he is squalling
pretty loud because I see Harry the Horse and Spanish John both walk past the window
and look in very anxious. Big Butch jiggles John Ignatius Junior up and down and keeps
whispering baby talk to him, which sounds very undignified coming from a high-class
safe-opener, and finally Butch whispers to me to hand him the package I am carrying.
He opens the package, and what is in it but a baby's nursing bottle full of milk. Moreover,
there is a little tin stew pan, and Butch hands the pan to me and whispers to me to find a
water tap somewhere in the joint and fill the pan with water. So I go stumbling around in
the dark in a room behind the office and bark my shins several times before I find a tap
and fill the pan. I take it back to Big Butch, and he squats there with the baby on one arm,
and gets a tin of what is called canned heat out of the package, and lights this canned heat
with his cigar lighter, and starts heating the pan of water with the nursing bottle in it.
Big Butch keeps sticking his finger in the pan of water while it is heating, and by and by
he puts the rubber nipple of the nursing bottle in his mouth and takes a pull at it to see if
the milk is warm enough, just like I see dolls who have babies do. Apparently the milk is
okay, as Butch hands the bottle to John Ignatius Junior, who grabs hold of it with both
hands, and starts sucking on the business end. Naturally he has to stop squalling, and Big
Butch goes to work on the safe again, with John Ignatius Junior sitting on the blanket,
pulling on the bottle and looking wiser than a treeful of owls.
It seems the safe is either a tougher job than anybody figures, or Big Butch's tools are not
so good, what with being old and rusty and used for building baby cribs, because he
breaks a couple of drills and works himself up into quite a sweat without getting
anywhere. Butch afterwards explains to me that he is one of the first guys in this country
to open safes without explosives, but he says to do this work properly you have to know
the safes so as to drill to the tumblers of the lock just right, and it seems that this
particular safe is a new type to him, even if it is old, and he is out of practice.
Well, in the meantime, John Ignatius Junior finishes his bottle and starts mumbling again,
and Big Butch gives him a tool to play with, and finally Butch needs this tool and tries to
take it away from John Ignatius Junior, and the baby lets out such a squawk that Butch
has to let him keep it until he can sneak it away from him, and this causes more delay.
Finally Big Butch gives up trying to drill the safe open, and he whispers to us that he will
have to put a little shot in it to loosen up the lock, which is all right with us, because we
are getting tired of hanging around and listening to John Ignatius junior's glug-glugging.
As far as I am personally concerned, I am wishing I am home in bed.
Well, Butch starts pawing through his satchel looking for something and it seems that
what he is looking for is a little bottle of some kind of explosive with which to shake the
lock on the safe up some, and at first he cannot find this bottle, but finally he discovers
that John Ignatius Junior has it and is gnawing at the cork, and Butch has quite a battle
making John Ignatius Junior give it up.
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