s hold when
Archie's heel took him shrewdly on the shin, he received a nasty punch
in what would have been the middle of his waistcoat if he had worn one,
uttered a gurgling bleat like a wounded sheep, and collapsed against the
wall. Archie, with a torn coat, rounded the corner, and sprinted down
Ninth Avenue.

The suddenness of the move gave him an initial advantage. He was halfway
down the first block before the vanguard of the pursuit poured out of
the side street. Continuing to travel well, he skimmed past a large dray
which had pulled up across the road, and moved on. The noise of those
who pursued was loud and clamorous in the rear, but the dray hid him
momentarily from their sight, and it was this fact which led Archie, the
old campaigner, to take his next step.

It was perfectly obvious--he was aware of this even in the novel
excitement of the chase--that a chappie couldn't hoof it at twenty-five
miles an hour indefinitely along a main thoroughfare of a great city
without exciting remark. He must take cover. Cover! That was the wheeze.
He looked about him for cover.

"You want a nice suit?"

It takes a great deal to startle your commercial New Yorker. The small
tailor, standing in his doorway, seemed in no way surprised at the
spectacle of Archie, whom he had seen pass at a conventional walk some
five minutes before, returning like this at top speed. He assumed that
Archie had suddenly remembered that he wanted to buy something.

This was exactly what Archie had done. More than anything else in the
world, what he wanted to do now was to get into that shop and have a
long talk about gents' clothing. Pulling himself up abruptly, he shot
past the small tailor into the dim interior. A confused aroma of cheap
clothing greeted him. Except for a small oasis behind a grubby counter,
practically all the available space was occupied by suits. Stiff suits,
looking like the body when discovered by the police, hung from hooks.
Limp suits, with the appearance of having swooned from exhaustion, lay
about on chairs and boxes. The place was a cloth morgue, a Sargasso Sea
of serge.

Archie would not have had it otherwise. In these quiet groves of
clothing a regiment could have lain hid.

"Something nifty in tweeds?" enquired the business-like proprietor of
this haven, following him amiably into the shop, "Or, maybe, yes, a nice
serge? Say, mister, I got a sweet thing in blue serge that'll fit you
like the paper on the wa