pened the door, and going out,
closed it softly behind him.

"Hermy," said Mrs. Trapes, clasping the girl's slender waist in her long
arm and leading her into the brightest of bright little kitchens, "I
like that young feller--who he is I don't know, what he does I don't
know, but what he is I do know, an' that's--a man, my dear! An' he
called you--Hermione! Sounds kind o' pretty the way he says it, don't
you think?" But Hermione didn't answer.

Meanwhile Mr. Ravenslee, descending the monotonous stairs, paused
suddenly to smile and to clap hand to thigh.

"A toasting fork!" said he, "a toasting fork is an instrument
possessing three or more sharp points! Ha! Mrs. Trapes is a woman of
singularly apposite ideas." And he smiled a little grimly as he went on
down the stairs.

CHAPTER IX

WHICH RECOUNTS THE END OF AN EPISODE

Midway down he beheld two burly policemen who mounted, one behind the
other, their grey helmets, blue coats, and silver buttons seeming to
fill the narrow stairway.

"Anything wrong?" he enquired, as they drew level.

"Not wid you dis time, bo!" answered one, blandly contemptuous, and
strode on up the stair, twirling his club in practised hand, his fellow
officer at his heels.

Thus rebuked, Mr. Ravenslee looked after them with quick-drawn brows
until, remembering his broken hat brim and shabby clothes, he smiled and
went upon his way. Reaching the dingy lower hall he beheld the solitary
gas-jet flare whose feeble light showed five lounging forms, rough
fellows who talked together in hoarse murmurs and with heads close
together.

He was passing by, when, in one of these deep-throated talkers, he
recognised the long limbs and wide, sloping shoulders of the Spider. Mr.
Ravenslee paused and nodded.

"Good evening!" said he, but this time kept his hands in his pockets.
The Spider eyed him somewhat askance, shifted his wad of chewing gum
from one cheek to the other, and spoke.

"'Lo!" said he.

"Do you know where Spike is?"

"S'pose I do--then what?" demanded the Spider with a truculent lurch of
his wide shoulders.

"Then I shall ask you to tell me where I can find him--or better still,
you might show me."

"Oh, might I?"

"You might!"

The feelings of the Spider waxing beyond mere words, he looked at the
speaker, viewed him up and down with a glance of contemptuous hostility,
whereat Ravenslee's whole expression melted into one of lamblike
meekness.

"Say," quoth the Spi