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short

Brace, a tramp, sits on a park bench dying for a smoke. A stranger seats himself beside Brace smoking a cigar-butt. Brace tells the stranger that he will recite a fine story for the present of that cigar-butt. The offer is accepted. Brace tell this tale: The Customs Service is trying to catch clever diamond smugglers. Brace, a customs service detective, is given the job. He searches in vain. One day a girl walks by him and drops a cigar box. The cigars roll out and into the mud. The girl is greatly excited. She quickly collects the cigars and even takes the muddy ones. Brace's assistance is impolitely refused. The girl rushes off. Brace surprised at her strange actions, examines the forgotten cigar and finds an uncut diamond in its center. Here at last is the trail. He follows the girl, but loses her. In disgust he comes to an ashman who is complaining over a barrel filled with cigar ends. "Same old story," says the ashman. "Dese guys keep throwin' out good seegars all cut up and not a one smoked." Brace realizes that this is the lair of the smugglers. He makes up as a poor Italian, and rents the room above that in which is the gang. The house is an old one and is heated by a hot-air furnace. The heat comes through gratings. There is one of these in the gang's room, and one in Brace's room. Through this Brace hears the gang's conversation. He rushes home, gets his phonograph and several records. The gang sees him as he returns with them. They sneak up to his room. He hears them coming and puts on the record "Rigoletto." They burst into his room to find an Italian music lover marking time to the opera. Their suspicions are allayed. They go back to their plotting. The phonograph records their schemes as they come through the furnace grating. The gang is caught red-handed. Then Brace brings in his phonograph. He puts on the record of the gang's plots. The gang hear their voices and chafe at their bonds in a rage. Then Brace puts on the record of the song, "There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town To-Night." In fury the gang are carried out struggling and cursing. The story is done. The stranger is pleased. "That's a corking good story. Here's a good cigar for telling it to me." And he gives one to Brace. Brace isn't used to smoking cigars. He cuts it in two, puts one piece in his pocket, and lights the other. Then he smokes happily away.

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Cigar Butts

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