Later in the day I once more joined him.

I expected the boy might be getting hungry for a smoke about the same time Owen met him on the road.

Well, he came, and we pounced down on him just when he had opened the pack, and was lighting a weed with his trembling, tobacco-stained fingers; because, just like Leon Disney, and that slick Nick Lang, Tip is a confirmed cigarette fiend, you know." "Well, for one, Nick has cut the habit out, Chief, I happen to know, for he told me so," Hugh ventured to say.
The big police officer sneered, as though he refused to believe there could any good come out of the boy who bore that detested name of Nick Lang.

During the whole of the time he occupied his present exalted position, Chief Wambold had been plagued by the pranks of Nick and his cronies; and, in spite of all his efforts, up to now he had been unable to fasten anything serious upon them, although he gave them credit for every piece of maliciousness practiced in Scranton during that period.
"Well, perhaps some people may believe Nick didn't have a hand in this outrage," he went on to say, "but I'll never think otherwise than that it was his genius for organizing raids that was responsible for the robbery.

At the least, he may have changed his mind, seeing things getting too warm in police circles here.