with his modest flat--it ought to be called a suite, for the lower hall
boasted only six speaking tubes--and he swore like a pirate as he came.
Finally the broad shoulders, which gave him his name, filled the door
frame.

"I don't give a tinker's dam who you are," he growled before he had
made out the features before him, "it's a blasted outrage! Hello, Don,
what in thunder brings you out at this time of night? You look white,
man, what's the trouble?"

Saul hitched up his trousers, his round sleepy face that of a
good-natured farmer.

"I want you to do me a favor if you will, Beefy. I know it 's a darned
shame to get you out at this hour."

"Tut, tut, man. If a friend can't get up for another friend, he ain't
much of a friend. Tell your troubles."

"I 'm looking for a man, Beefy, who 's down there somewhere among your
Chinks."

"Hitting the pipe?"

"I 'm afraid so."

"Have n't any address I suppose--don't know his favorite joint?"

"I don't know a thing about him except that he has been down there
before--that he lit out again a little over an hour ago, half mad--and
that I must find him."

"An hour ago, eh? That helps, some. There 's only a few of 'em open
to the public at that time. But say, is there any special hurry? He's
had time to get his dope by now. I 've got some work there in the
morning."

"There's a girl waiting for him, Beefy, a girl who is paying big for
every hour he's gone."

"So? Well, m' boy, guess we 'll have to get him then. I 'll be down
in ten minutes. Make yourself at home on the doorstep."

Donaldson waited in the taxicab. For the first time in his life he
computed the value of one-sixth of an hour. So long as he had been
with the girl--or so long as he had been active in her behalf--the
minutes were filled with sufficient interest to make them pass
unreckoned. But to sit here and wait, to sit here and watch the
seconds wasted, to sit here and be conscious of each one of them as it
bit, like a thieving wharf rat, into his dwindling Present and carried
the morsel of time back to the greedy Past, was a different matter.
When finally Saul appeared with a fat cigar in one corner of his chubby
mouth, Donaldson was halfway across the sidewalk to meet him.

"Good Lord!" he laughed excitedly, almost pushing the big man toward
the cab, "I thought you were lost up there."

Saul paused with one foot already on the step. Then turning back, he
struck a match for his cig