saloon and found themselves in a small street
which lay like a back-water off that thronged avenue. "There it is now."

Bat saw a dingy-looking place with the name "Gaffney" painted in red
letters upon the window and two billiard cues in yellow crossed beneath
it. They entered and were greeted by a babble of voices, an incessant
clicking of balls and the thick odor of poor tobacco. Here and there
games of more than ordinary interest were going on; the principals were,
as a rule, fox-like young men who wore no coats and staked their
handling of their cues against the world for a living. Small crowds were
gathered about these contests; the "shots" were lightning-like, and of
great precision.

Lining the walls were rows of men, some with vacant faces, others alert
and predatory; and as Bat looked about, he noted what he had noted in
such places many times before.

"A hang-out for quitters and a meeting-place for yeggs," he thought.
"There's more good time wasted in places like this and more crooked
deeds hatched than would put a roof over Lake Michigan."

With Big Slim, he took a station at the far end of the place; here and
there was a doorway opening into a smaller room and in which more tables
were erected.

"Get that fellow with the curly mop," said the burglar, indicating this
doorway. "Inside there."

A middle-aged man in his shirt-sleeves, with a remarkably high collar
and a shock of curling and very dark hair, was arranging the balls at
one of the inner tables. The shirt sleeves were loudly striped and the
curling hair was arranged in ornamental waves of which he seemed very
vain; for as Bat watched, he saw the man gaze into a specked mirror and
pass a hand carefully over them.

"He looks like the beginning of a parade," said Bat. "Who is he?"

"Name's Hutchinson, and he runs this place for Gaffney," replied Big
Slim. "And," here he grinned and pulled at his bony fingers until they
cracked, "he's a very intimate friend of a friend of mine."

"That so?" Scanlon looked at the man reflectively, and tried to think
what possible bearing this could have on the matter which interested
him. As far as he was able to see, it had none; but somehow the name
Gaffney once more became active in his mind, and this troubled him.

"It's because it's painted on everything around the place," reasoned
Bat. "The walls and the cue racks have it; and as I stand here I can see
it done backwards on the front window. Gaffney means