n the committee, it was up to me to answer any
calls. Might be entertainin' to see who he'd mistaken for an enemy alien
this time. And if all I was expected to do was spill a little impromptu
strategy--well, maybe I could, and then again maybe I couldn't. I'd take
a look, anyway.

It was seein' a light in Danny Shea's little cottage, back on a side
lane, that gave me my original hunch. Danny is one of the important
officials of the Long Island Railroad, if you let him tell it. He's the
flagman down where the highway and trolley line cross the tracks at
grade, and when his rheumatism ain't makin' him grouchy he's more or
less amusin' to chin with.

Danny had pestered the section boss until he'd got him to build a little
square coop for him, there by the crossin'--a place where he could crawl
in between trains, smoke his pipe, and toast himself over a sheet-iron
stove about as big as a picnic coffee-pot.

And that sentry-box effect was the pride of Danny's heart. Most of his
spare time and all the money he could bone out of the commuters he spent
in improvin' and decoratin' it. He'd cut a couple of round windows,
like port-holes, and fitted 'em with swingin' sashes. Then he'd tacked
on some flower-boxes underneath and filled 'em with geraniums.

When he wasn't waterin' his flowers or coaxin' along his little
grass-plot or addin' another shelf inside, he was paintin' the outside.
Danny's idea of a swell color scheme seemed to be to get on as many
different shades as possible. The roof was red, the sides a bright blue.
But where he spread himself was on the trim. All you had to do to get on
the right side of Danny was to lug him out a half-pound can of paint
different from any he'd applied so far. He'd use it somehow.

So the window-sashes was picked out in yellow, the side battens loomed
up prominent as black lines, and the door-panels was a pale pink. Nearly
all the commuters had been touched by Danny for something or other that
could be added to the shack. Only a week or so before, I'd got in strong
with him by contributin' a new padlock for the door--a vivid red one,
like they have on the village jail in vaudeville plays.

And it struck me now that if I had the key to that little box of Danny's
it would make a perfectly good listenin'-post for any midnight
sleuthin' I had to do. Most likely he was up dosin' himself or bathin'
his joints.

Well, he was. He didn't seem any too enthusiastic about lettin' me have
th