ged at his work the notary stood at his back, abusing
him and exclaiming at the ineffectiveness of the contrivance. The notary
was a middle-aged man with a swollen, purple face; he had a toothpick
behind each ear and wore an office coat of gray linen, ripped at the
shoulders.

Then the transfer was made. It was all settled in less than half an
hour, unceremoniously, almost hastily. For the sake of form Geary signed
a check for eight thousand dollars which Vandover in his turn made over
to Hiram Wade. The notary filled out a deed of grant, bargain, and sale,
pasting on his certificate of acknowledgment as soon as Vandover and
Geary had signed. Geary took the abstract, thrusting it into his
breast-pocket. As far as Vandover was concerned, the sale was complete,
but he had neither his properly nor its equivalent in money.

"Well," declared Geary at length, "I guess that's all there is to be
done. I'll get a release from old man Wade and send it to you to-morrow
or next day. Now, let's go down to the Imperial and have a drink on it."
They went out, but the notary returned to the anteroom, turning the
spigot of the filter to right and left, frowning at it suspiciously,
refusing to be satisfied.

Chapter Sixteen

That particular room in the Lick House was well toward the rear of the
building, on one of the upper floors, and from its window, one looked
out upon a vast reach of roofs that rose little by little to meet the
abrupt rise of Telegraph Hill. It was a sordid and grimy wilderness,
topped with a gray maze of wires and pierced with thousands of chimney
stacks. Many of the roofs were covered with tin long since blackened by
rust and soot. Here and there could be seen clothes hung out to dry.
Occasionally upon the flanking walls of some of the larger buildings was
displayed an enormous painted sign, a violent contrast of intense black
and staring white amidst the sooty brown and gray, advertising some
tobacco, some newspaper, or some department store. Not far in the
distance two tall smokestacks of blackened tin rose high in the air,
above the roof of a steam laundry, one very large like the stack of a
Cunarder, the other slender, graceful, with a funnel-shaped top. All day
and all night these stacks were smoking; from the first, the larger one,
rolled a heavy black smoke, very gloomy, waving with a slow and
continued movement like the plume of some sullen warrior. But the other
one, the tall and slender pipe,