a man coming to"--"supper in twenty
minutes," after which he pounded a bell furiously and then himself
showed his new and puzzling guest to a room--but not a room "with a
bath," be it understood, for a most excellent reason.

Billy Durgin was excited half an hour later by noting the behavior of
the first strange gentleman from the East as his eyes fell upon this
second. He threw both hands into the air, where they engaged in rapid
horizontal shakings from his pliant wrists, and in hushed gutturals
exclaimed, "My God, my God!" in his own fashion of speech, which was
reproduced admirably for me by my informant. Billy was thus confirmed in
his earlier belief that the first strange gentleman was a house-breaker
badly wanted somewhere, and he now surmised that the newcomer must be a
detective on his trail. But a close watch on their meeting, a little
later in the evening, seemed to contradict this engaging hypothesis. The
second stranger emerged from the dining room, where he had been served
with supper, and as he shut the door of that banqueting hall, Billy,
standing by, heard him, too, call upon his Maker. He called only once,
but it was in a voice so full of feeling as to make Billy suspect that
he was remembering something unpleasant.

At this point the newcomer had glanced up to behold the first strange
gentleman, and Billy held his breath, expecting to witness a sensational
capture. To his unspeakable disgust the supposed sleuth grinned affably
at his supposed quarry and said: "Ah, Hyman! Is the stuff any good?"

"How did you find it out?" asked the first strange gentleman.

The other smiled winningly. "Why, I dropped into your place the other
day, and that beautiful daughter-in-law of yours mentioned incidentally
where you'd gone and what for. She's a good soul, Hyman, bright, and as
chatty as she can be."

"Ach! That Malke! She goes back right off to De Lancey Street, where she
belongs," said the first stranger, plainly irritated.

"How did you find the stuff, Hyman?"

"Have you et your supper yet?"

"Yes--'tisn't Kosher, is it? How did you find the stuff?"

"No, it ain't Kosher--nothing ain't Kosher!"

"It's a devilish sight worse, though. How did you find the stuff,
Hyman?"

The one called Hyman here seemed to despair of putting off this query.

"No good! No good!--not a decent piece in the lot! I pledge you my word
as a gentleman I wouldn't pay the freight on it to Fourth Avenue!" Billy
remarked that