ped abruptly and drew back.

For just before us under the dump was a cave with walls of papers and
rags. A lantern hung from overhead, swung gently in the raw salt breeze,
and by its light we could see a half dozen swarthy small boys. Five were
intent on a game of dice, whispering fiercely while they played. Their
boss lay asleep in a corner. The sixth, the smallest of them all, sat
smoking in the mouth of the cave, his knees drawn up and his big dilated
black eyes roving hungrily out over the water. All at once around the
end of the pier, a dark, tall shadow like a spook swept silently out
before him. He sprang back and fervently crossed himself, then grinned
and drew on his cigarette hard. For the shadow was only a scow with a
derrick. The imp continued his watching.

"Now," said J. K. a few minutes later back on shore, "you want to get
their hours and wages. You want to look up the fire law about lighted
cigarettes and a lantern----"

"Oh, damn your fire law," I growled. "I want to know where that kid with
the cigarette was born, and what he thinks of the harbor!" Joe gave me
one of his cheerful grins.

"You might get his views on the tariff," he said.

"Look here, J. K.," I implored him; "go home. Go on home and leave me
alone. It's all right, I'm glad you brought me here--darned good of you,
and I'll get a story. Only for God's sake leave me alone!"

"Sure," said Joe. "Only don't try to talk to those little Guineys. Their
boss wouldn't let 'em say a word and you'd lose your chance of watching
'em. Make it a kind of a mystery story."

And a mystery story I made it.

Where had he been a year ago, this imp who had fervently crossed
himself? In Naples, Rome or Venice, or poking his toes into the dust of
a street in some dull little town in the hills? What great condor of
to-day had picked him up and dropped him here? How did it look to him?
What did he feel?

I came back to the dump night after night, and writing blindly in the
dark I tried to jot down what he saw--gigantic shapes and shadows, some
motionless, some rushing by with their dim spectral little lights, and
over all the great arch of the Bridge rearing over half the sky. The
lantern in the cave behind threw a patch of light on the water below,
and across that patch from under the pier where the water was slapping,
slapping, there came an endless bobbing procession--a whisky bottle, a
broken toy horse, a bit of a letter, a pink satin slipper, a dirt