eary at this moment wore upon his head a very
wide-brimmed, very floppy straw hat with two quaint pink-ribbon
streamers floating jauntily down between his shoulders at the back.

For reasons which in view of this sartorial description should be
obvious, Mr. Leary hugged closely up to the abutting house fronts when
he left behind him the marooned taxi with its comatose driver asleep
upon it, like one lone castaway upon a small island in a sea of
emptiness, and set his face eastward. Such was the warmth of his
annoyance he barely felt the chill striking upon his exposed nether
limbs or took note of the big snowflakes melting damply upon his thinly
protected ankles. Then, too, almost immediately something befell which
upset him still more.

He came to where a wooden marquee, projecting over the entrance to a
shipping room, made a black strip along the feebly lighted pavement. As
he entered the patch of darkness the shape of a man materialised out of
the void and barred his way, and in that same fraction of a second
something shiny and hard was thrust against Mr. Leary's daunted bosom,
and in a low forceful rumble a voice commanded him as follows: "Put up
your mitts--and keep 'em up!"

Matching the action of his hands everything in Mr. Leary seemed to
start skyward simultaneously. His hair on his scalp straightened, his
breath came up from his lungs in a gasp, his heart lodged in his throat,
and his blood quit his feet, leaving them practically devoid of
circulation and ascended and drummed in his temples. He had a horrid,
emptied feeling in his diaphragm, too, as though the organs customarily
resident there had caught the contagion of the example and gone north.

"That's nice," spake the fearsome stranger. "Now stay jest the way you
are and don't make no peep or I'll have to plug you wit' this here gat."

[Illustration: "THAT'S NICE," SPAKE THE FEARSOME STRANGER. "NOW STAY
JEST THE WAY YOU ARE AND DON'T MAKE NO PEEP OR I'LL HAVE TO PLUG YOU
WIT' THIS HERE GAT"]

His right hand maintained the sinister pressure of the weapon against
the victim's deflated chest, while his left dexterously explored the
side pockets of Mr. Leary's overcoat. Then the same left hand jerked the
frogged fastenings of the garment asunder and went pawing swiftly over
Mr. Leary's quivering person, seeking the pockets which would have been
there had Mr. Leary been wearing garments bearing the regulation and
ordained number of pockets. But the exp