s very spot. Why, this must be West Ninth Street; it had to
be, it was--oh joy, it was! And Bob Slack, his partner, lived in this
identical block on this same side of the street.

With his throat throbbing to the impulse of new-born hope he emerged
completely from behind the refuge of the storm doors, backed himself out
and down upon the top step, and by means of a dubious illumination
percolating through the fanlight above the inner door he made out the
figures upon the lintel. This was such and such a number; therefore Bob
Slack's number must be the second number to the eastward, at the next
door but one.

IX

Five seconds later a fleet apparition of a prevalent pinkish tone gave a
ranging house cat the fright of its life as former darted past latter to
vault nimbly up the stone steps of a certain weatherbeaten
four-story-and-basement domicile. Set in the door jamb here was a
vertical row of mail-slots, and likewise a vertical row of electric push
buttons; these objects attesting to the fact that this house, once upon
a time the home of a single family, had eventually undergone the
transformation which in lower New York befalls so many of its kind, and
had become a layer-like succession of light-housekeeping apartments, one
apartment to a floor, and the caretaker in the basement.

Since Bob Slack's bachelor quarters were on the topmost floor Bob
Slack's push button would be the next to the lowermost of the battery of
buttons. A chilled tremulous finger found that particular button and
pressed it long and hard, released it, pressed it again and yet again.
And in the interval following each period of pressing the finger's owner
hearkened, all ears, for the answering click-click that would tell him
the sleeper having been roused by the ringing had risen and pressed the
master button that released the mechanism of the street door's lock.

But no welcome clicking rewarded the expectant ringer. Assuredly Bob
Slack must be the soundest sleeper in the known world. He who waited
rang and rang and rerang. There was no response.

Eventually conviction was forced upon Mr. Leary that he must awaken the
caretaker--who, he seemed dimly to recall as a remembrance of past
visits to Bob Slack, was a woman; and this done he must induce the
caretaker to admit him to the inside of the house. Once within the
building the refugee promised himself he would bring the slumberous
Slack to consciousness if he had to beat down that indivi