indow was lighting up in his honour; all in all, as
distressful a figure of a fugitive from justice as ever was on land or
sea....

Conceiving the block as a well a-brim with blackness and clamorous
with violent sound, studded on high with inaccessible, yellow-bright
loopholes wherefrom hostile eyes spied upon his every secret movement,
and haunted below by vicious perils both animate and still: he found
himself possessed of an overpowering desire to go away from there
quickly.

But--short of further dabbling in crime--_how_?

To break his way to the street through one of those houses would he
not only to invite apprehension: it would be downright burglary.

To continue his headlong career of the fugitive backyards tom-cat was
out of the question, entirely too much like hard work, painful into
the bargain--witness scratched and abraded palms and agonised shins.
Sooner or later his strength must fail, some one would surely espy him
and cry on the chase, he must be surrounded and overwhelmed: while to
hide behind some ash-barrel was not only ignoble but downright
fatuous: faith the most sublime in his _Kismet_ couldn't excuse any
hope that, eventually, he wouldn't be discovered and ignominiously
routed out.

Very well, then! So be it! Calmly P. Sybarite elected to venture
another and deeper dive into amateurish malfeasance; and gravely he
studied the inoffensive building whose back premises he was then
infesting.

It seemed to offer at least the negative invitation of desuetude. It
showed no lights; had not an open window--so far as could be
determined by straining sight aided only by a faint reflection from
the livid skies. One felt warranted in assuming the premises to be
vacant. Encouraging surmise! If such were in fact the case, he might
hope soon to be counting his spoils in the privacy of his
top-floor-hall-bedroom, back....

At the same time, to one ignorant of the primary principles of
house-breaking, the problem of negotiating an entrance was of
formidable proportions.

To break a basement window was feasible, certainly--but highly
inadvisable for a number of obvious reasons.

To force a window-latch required (if memory served) a long flat-bladed
knife--a kitchen knife; and P. Sybarite happened to have no such
implement about him.

Similarly, to pry open the back door would require the services of a
jimmy (whatever that might be).

Moreover, there were such things as burglar alarms--inventions of