was he to do? Noodles stopped see-sawing the cord
suddenly--and stared at it through the darkness, though he couldn't see
it. Then he edged down another step, turned around on his knees, and
knotted one end of the cord--it was a good stout one--to one side of
the bannisters, about six inches from the level of the hall floor.
There was a bannister railing on each side, and he stretched the cord
tightly across to the other bannister, and knotted it there. That
would do for a beginning! It didn't promise as gory a denouement as he
thirsted for, and he was a little ashamed of the colorlessness of his
expedient compared with those he'd read about, but there wasn't anybody
else likely to use those stairs before Regan did, and it would do for a
beginning--Regan would get a jolt or two before he reached the bottom!

Noodles retreated down the stairs and retired to the rain barrel.
Waits had been long there before, but to-night the time dragged
hopelessly--he didn't expect to see very much, but he would be able to
hear Regan coming down the stairs, so he waited, curbing his impatience
by biting anxiously on the ends of his finger nails.

Suddenly Noodles leaned head and shoulders far out from behind the rain
barrel to miss no single detail of this, the initial act of his
revenge, that he could drink in, his eyes fastened on the station
door--the light in the window above had gone out. Very grim was
Noodles' face, and his teeth were hard set together--there was no
foolishness about this. The super's door upstairs opened and
shut--Noodles leaned a little farther forward out from the rain barrel.

Meanwhile, Regan, upstairs, was not in a good humor. Regan, when
alone, played a complicated and somewhat intricate species of
solitaire, a matter of some pride to the master mechanic, and that
evening he had had no luck--his combinations wouldn't work out. So,
after something like fifteen abortive attempts that consumed the better
part of an hour and a half, and victory still remaining an elusive
thing, Regan chucked the cards back into Carleton's drawer in disgust,
knocked the ashes out of his pipe, refilled the pipe for company
homeward, and, growling a little to himself, blew out the super's lamp.
He walked across to the door, opened and shut it, and stepped out into
the hall. Here, he halted and produced a match, both because his pipe
was as yet unlighted, and because the stairs were dark. He struck the
match, applied it