around, not across the square of pavement, keeping close to the dark
wall and avoiding the streak of light that fell on the flagstones
from a window in the opposite house. Seen from that height he was of
course fore-shortened and probably looked more shambling and
decrepit than he was. He picked his way along with exaggerated care
and looked like a silly old cat crossing a wet street. When he
reached the gate that led into an alley way between two buildings,
he felt about for the latch, opened the door a mere crack, and then
shot out under the feeble lamp that burned in the brick arch over
the gateway. The door closed after him.

"He'll get run in," Eastman remarked curtly, turning away from the
window. "That door shouldn't be left unlocked. Any crook could come
in. I'll speak to the janitor about it, if you don't mind," he added
sarcastically.

"Wish you would." Cavenaugh stood brushing down the front of his
jacket, first with his right hand and then with his left. "You saw
him, didn't you?"

"Enough of him. Seems eccentric. I have to see a lot of buggy
people. They don't take me in any more. But I'm keeping you and I'm
in a hurry myself. Good night."

Cavenaugh put out his hand detainingly and started to say something;
but Eastman rudely turned his back and went down the hall and out of
the door. He had never felt anything shady about Cavenaugh before,
and he was sorry he had gone down for the dictionary. In five
minutes he was deep in his papers; but in the half hour when he was
loafing before he dressed to go out, the young man's curious
behavior came into his mind again.

Eastman had merely a neighborly acquaintance with Cavenaugh. He had
been to a supper at the young man's rooms once, but he didn't
particularly like Cavenaugh's friends; so the next time he was
asked, he had another engagement. He liked Cavenaugh himself, if for
nothing else than because he was so cheerful and trim and ruddy. A
good complexion is always at a premium in New York, especially when
it shines reassuringly on a man who does everything in the world to
lose it. It encourages fellow mortals as to the inherent vigor of
the human organism and the amount of bad treatment it will stand
for. "Footprints that perhaps another," etc.

Cavenaugh, he knew, had plenty of money. He was the son of a
Pennsylvania preacher, who died soon after he discovered that his
ancestral acres were full of petroleum, and Kier had come to New
York to burn so