rain. See?
Here's a dollar down in advance. Tell Fred Mr. Thompson sent you--that's
me, Thompson. He'll give it to you--I told him I'd send for it. I'll be
waiting right here. If you get back with it in seven minutes I'll give
you another dollar--and if you get back inside of seven minutes I'll
make it two dollars more. Got the number in your mind?"

"Yas, suh--three seventy-fo' Wes' Forty-fift', you said."

"Correct. Now run like the very devil up Broadway to Forty-fifth and
turn west!"

"Boss," cried the darky, "Ise gone!"

He was, too. His splay feet in their broken shoes fairly spurned the
sidewalk as he darted northward, boring his way through the lanes of
pedestrians, knocking people aside out of their stride and followed as
he went by a wake of curses and grunts and curious glances. On a street
where nearly everyone trots but few gallop, the sight of a running man
catches the popular interest instantly, the common theory being that the
runner has done something wrong and is trying to get away, else he would
not run.

The instant the negro turned his back on him, Trencher slid inside the
recessed entrance of the clothing store and flattened himself against
its door. If chance had timed the occurrence just right he would win the
reprieve that he required for what he meant next to undertake. And sure
enough, as it turned out, chance had so timed it.

* * * * *

For just as he pressed his bulk into the recess the man hunt manifested
itself. Bursting headlong out of the front of Wallinger's Hotel came a
policeman--doubtlessly the one already seen by Trencher--and just behind
the policeman a roughly dressed bearded man, and with these two, at
their heels, a jostling impetuous swarm of other men, to be joined
instantly by yet more men, who had run round the corner of the hotel
from Thirty-ninth Street, instead of passing through its lobby. For the
veriest fraction of time they all slowed down, casting about them with
their eyes for a trail to follow.

Trencher, looking slantwise to the south, could see them plainly. The
foremost members of the hesitating and uncertain group were not sixty
feet from him. He forgot to breathe.

Then, all together, half a dozen pointing arms were flung out to the
north.

"There he goes, officer, runnin'! See 'im yonder? See 'im?"

With a forward surge and a great clatter of feet the hunt was renewed.
Past Trencher's refuge, with never a look thi