ou know. We giff you one more
chance. So shall you take it or you shall take some consequences!
_Goot-night!_"

The instrument clicked in her ear as the unknown threatener hung up,
leaving her seated there, astonished, hurt, bewildered.

* * * * *

The man who "hung up on her" stepped out of a saloon on Eighth Avenue
and joined two other men on the corner.

The man was Karl Kastner; the other two were Sondheim and Bromberg.

"Get her?" growled the latter, as all three started east.

"Yess. And now we shall see what we shall see. We start the finish now
already. All foolishness shall be ended. Now we fix Puma."

They continued on across the street, clumping along with their
overcoat collars turned up, for it had turned bitter cold and the wind
was rising.

"You don't think it's a plant?" inquired Sondheim, for the third
time.

Bromberg blew his red nose on a dirty red handkerchief.

"We'll plant Puma if he tries any of that," he said thickly.

Kastner added that he feared investigation more than they did because
he had more at stake.

"Dot guy he iss rich like a millionaire," he added. "Ve make him pay
some dammach, too."

"How's he going to fire that bunch of women if they got a lease?"
demanded Bromberg.

"Who the hell cares how he does it?" grunted Sondheim.

"Sure," added Kastner; "let him dig up. You buy anybody if you haff
sufficient coin. Effery time! Yess. Also! Let him dig down into his
pants once. So shall he pay them, these vimmen, to go avay und shut
up mit their mischief what they make for us already!"

Sondheim was still muttering about "plants" in the depths of his
soiled overcoat-collar, when they arrived at the hall and presented
themselves at the door of Puma's outer office.

A girl took their message. After a while she returned and piloted them
out, and up a wide flight of stairs to a door marked, "No admittance."
Here she knocked, and Puma's voice bade them enter.

Angelo Puma was standing by a desk when they trooped in, keeping their
hats on. The room was ventilated and illumined in the daytime only by
a very dirty transom giving on a shaft. Otherwise, there were no
windows, no outlet to any outer light and air.

Two gas jets caged in wire--obsolete stage dressing-room effects--lighted
the room and glimmered on Puma's polished top-hat and the gold knob of
his walking-stick.

As for Puma himself, he glanced up stealthily from the scen