What a galaxy of crooks--the cream of the underworld! His eyes, under half-closed lids, swept the faces--lags, dips, gatmen, yeggs, mob stormers, murderers, petty sneak thieves, stalls, hangers-on--they were all there.

He knew them all; he was known to all.
He shuffled on to the far end of the room, his leer a little arrogant, a certain arrogance, too, in the tilt of his battered hat.

He also was quite a celebrity in that gathering--Larry the Bat was of the aristocracy and the elite of gangland.

Well, the show was over; he had stalked across the stage, performed for his audience--and in another hour now, free until he must repeat the same performance the next day in some other equally notorious dive, he would be sitting in for a rubber of bridge at that most exclusive of all clubs, the St.James, where none might enter save only those whose names were vouched for in the highest and most select circles, and where for partners he would possibly have a justice of the supreme court, or mayhap an eminent divine! He looked suddenly around him, as though startled.

It always startled him, that comparison.