or the door,
took in the growler, shut the boy out and buried his face in the
froth. He was in better heart, but still mighty uneasy when he wiped
his mouth on the back of his fist.

Somewhere in the flat a clock ticked dismally. Through two small open
windows puffed superheated gusts of air. The muffled clamor of many
voices in strange tongues sifted through the windows and walls, but
served only to increase the awful stillness in the room. Despite his
efforts to the contrary, Phelan stole a glance at the bed, then looked
away while his heart stopped beating. There was a naked foot where he
had seen only a sheet before.

"Mebbe the wind blew it off," he tried to tell himself, but something
inside him rejected the explanation and he felt an icy finger drawn up
and down his spine. Again he plunged his head into the capacious can
and succeeded in reviving his heart action.

More minutes of dreadful suspense passed. A leaden silence had filled
the sweltering room. Even the voices of the tenements had died away to
a funereal murmur. Battle as he did with all his will, Phelan's eyes
were again drawn from their fixed gaze upon the wall, and what he saw
this time induced a strangling sensation.

Three toes had distinctly wiggled.

He withdrew his eyes on the instant and his shaking hand reached down
for the can. His fingers had barely touched it when an awful shriek
rent the air. The shriek came from the bed, and it was followed by a
second yell and then by a third.

Michael Phelan did not open the door as he passed out. It was not a
very strong door and it went down like cardboard before the impact.
The third shriek awoke the echoes just as Officer 666 was coasting
down the stairs on the seat of his departmental trousers. His
departmental coat and his departmental hat were in no way connected
with his precipitate transit. A raging Polish woman brought these
details of Michael's uniform to the Eldridge street station a little
later. Likewise she prefered charges against Phelan that come under
the heading of "conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman."

It was a tremendous trial, in the course of which the Deputy Police
Commissioner who sat in judgment barely missed having a serious
stroke. It was adduced in evidence that Officer 666 had entered the
wrong flat, the Coroner's case being one flight up.

But while the whole town rocked with laughter Michael Phelan failed to
see the joke, and his hatred of Precinct De