de awake long before my regular hour for rollin' out, and after
makin' three or four stabs at a second nap I gives it up, slips down
for an early breakfast, and before eight A.M. I'm down in the basement
of the Corrugated Buildin' interviewin' the assistant superintendent in
his little coop of an office. I comes out whistlin' and lookin' wise.
And that night after I'd made a trip over to Long Island across the
Queensboro Bridge I looks wiser still. Nothin' to do until next
Wednesday.

And when it comes it sure opens up like it's goin' to be a big day, all
right! At first Old Hickory announces that he ain't goin' to have any
cops campin' around in the directors' room. It was all blithering
nonsense! Hadn't he lived through all sorts of warnin's before? And
he'd be eternally blim-scuttled if he was goin' to get cold feet over a
few faded flowers!

There was Piddie, though, with his say. His idea is to have the
reserves from two precincts scattered all over the shop, and he lugs
around such a serious face and talks so panicky that at last the boss
compromises on havin' two of the buildin' specials detailed for the
job. We smuggles 'em into the big room at eleven o'clock, and tells
'em to lay low until they gets the word. Next comes Bingstetter,
blinkin' mysterious, and has himself concealed behind a screen in the
private office. By that time Old Hickory is almost as nervous as
anybody.

"Fine state of affairs, things are at now," he growls, "when a man
isn't safe unless he has a bodyguard! That's what comes of all this
political agitation!"

"Have no fear," says the Doc; "you will not receive the fifth bouquet.
Boy, leave that door into the next room slightly ajar. He will try to
escape that way."

"Ajar she is," says I, proppin' it open with a 'phone directory.

"'Tis well," says the Doc. "Now leave us."

I was goin' to, anyway; for at exactly noon I had a date somewhere
else. There was a window openin' off the bondroom that was screened by
a pile of cases, and out from that was an iron fire escape runnin'
along the whole court side on our floor. I'd picked that window out as
bein' a good place to scout from. And I couldn't have been better
placed; for I saw just who I was expectin' the minute he heaves in
sight. I'd like to have had one glimpse, though, of Old Hickory and
the Doc and Piddie while they was watchin' and listenin' and holdin'
their breath inside there. But I'm near enough when the