elastic
cord that circled his head and kept the patch in place was in equal
disrepute. A battered slouch hat came to the level of the eye-patch in
a forbidding sort of tilt. His left eyelid drooped until it was scarcely
open at all, and fluttered continually. One nostril of his nose was
entirely closed; and his mouth seemed to be twisted out of shape, so
that, even when in repose, the lips never entirely met at one corner.
And his ears, what she could see of them in the poor light, and on
account of the slouch hat, seemed to bear out the low-type criminal
impression the man gave her, in that they lay flat back against his
head.

She turned her eyes away with a little shudder of repulsion, and gave
her attention to an inspection of the room. There was no window,
except a small one high up in the right-hand partition wall. She quite
understood what that meant. It was common enough, and all too unsanitary
enough, in these old and cheap tenements; the window gave, not on the
out-of-doors, but on a light-well. For the rest, it was a room she
had seen a thousand times before--carpetless, unfurnished save for the
barest necessities, dirt everywhere, unkempt.

Pinkie Bonn broke in abruptly upon her inspection.

"That's all right!" he announced airily. "We'll let Nan in on it, too.
The Pug an' me figures she can give us a hand."

Shluker's wizened little face seemed suddenly to go purple.

"Are you tryin' to make a fool of me?" he half screamed. "Or can't you
understand English? D'ye want me to keep on tellin' you till I'm hoarse
that there ain't nobody goin' in with you, because you am't goin' in
yourself! See? Understand that? There's nothing doin' to-night for
anybody--and that means you!"

"Aw, shut up, Shluker!" It was the Pug now, a curious whispering
sibilancy in his voice, due no doubt to the disfigurement of his lips.
"Give Pinkie a chance to shoot his spiel before youse injure yerself
throwin' a fit! Go on, Pinkie, spill it."

"Sure!" said Pinkie eagerly. "Listen, Shluk! It ain't any crib we're
wantin' to crack, or nothin' like that. It's just a couple of crooks
that won't dare open their yaps to the bulls, 'cause what we're after
'll be what they'll have pinched themselves. See?"

Shluker's face lost some of its belligerency, and in its place a dawning
interest came.

"What's that?" he demanded cautiously. "What crooks?"

"French Pete an' Marny Day," said Pinkie--and grinned.

"Oh!" Shluker's eyebrows we