g the company, and, scenting news,
fell in with me as I was walking toward the Club.

"Any story in this, Mr. Barslow?" he asked.

"Oh, is that you, Watson?" I answered. "I was going on an errand which
concerns myself. I was going alone."

"If you're looking for any one," he said, trotting along beside me, "I
can find him a good deal quicker than you can, probably. And if there's
news in it, I'll get it anyhow; and I'll naturally know it more from
your standpoint, and look at it more as you do, if we go together. Don't
you think so?"

"See here, Watson," said I, "you may help if you wish. But if you print
a word without my consent, I can and will scoop the _Times_ every day,
from this on, with every item of business news coming through our
office. Do you understand, and do you promise?"

"Why, certainly," said he. "You've got the thing in your own hands. What
is it, anyhow?"

I told him, and found that Trescott's dipsomania was as well known to
him as myself.

"He's been throwing money to the fowls for a year or two," he remarked.
"It's better than two to one you don't find him at the Club: the
atmosphere won't be congenial for him there."

At the Club we found Watson's forecast verified. At O'Brien's our
knocking on the door aroused a sleepy bartender, who told us that no one
was there, but refused to let us in. Watson called him aside, and they
talked together for a few minutes.

"All right," said the reporter, turning away from him, "much obliged,
Hank; I believe you've struck it."

Watson was leader now, and I followed him toward Front Street, near the
river. He said that Hank, the barkeeper, had told him that Trescott had
been in his saloon about nine o'clock, drinking heavily; and from the
company he was in, it was to be suspected that he would be steered into
a joint down on the river front. We passed through an alley, and down a
back basement stairway, came to a door, on which Watson confidently
knocked, and which was opened by a negro who let us in as soon as he saw
the reporter. The air was sickening with an odor which I then perceived
for the first time, and which Watson called the dope smell. There was an
indefinable horror about the place, which so repelled me that nothing
but my obligation could have held me there. The lights were dim, and at
first I could see nothing more than that the sides of the room were
divided into compartments by dull-colored draperies, in a manner
suggesting the secti