Gladwin's mind
it did suddenly occur to him as he strolled jauntily along that he had
neglected to ask Phelan to define the circumscribed limits of his
post. What if he should happen to butt into another patrolman? Certain
exposure and all his plans would go flui! Then there was the danger of
being recognized by some of his neighbors and friends. Ah! it came to
him in a twinkling. A disguise!

"Here goes," he said aloud. "I'll jump a taxi and see if I can hunt up
a hair store!"

The time was 7 P. M., with the inky darkness of night blanketing the
city so far as inky darkness can blanket a metropolis.

The thoroughfare on which the young man stood was a long lane of
dazzle, wherefore the nocturnal shadows offered no concealment. He
cast his eyes up and down the avenue in search of a tramp motor-hack
cruising in search of a fare. He had only a moment or two to wait
before one of the bright yellow variety came racketing along. He stuck
up his hand and waved his baton at the driver. There was a crunching
of brakes and the taxi hove to and warped into the curb. The chauffeur
had the countenance of a pirate, but his grin was rather reassuring.

"Say, me friend," began the young man, in an effort to assume Michael
Phelan's brogue, "do you know the way to a hair store?"

"A what?" the chauffeur shot back, while his grin went inside.

"A hair store--I want a bit of a disguise fer my features--whiskers,
false hair or the like."

"Did ye stop me to kid me?" snarled the chauffeur. "Ye don't need to
think 'cause you got on a bull's uniform ye can hurl the harpoon into
me. Or if it's a drink ye're wantin' reach in under the seat an'
there's a flask. If ye meant hair oil why didn't ye say it?"

"Thanks, but 'tis no drink I'm afther," said the young man. "'Tis a
ride to a hair store, an' here's a tin-spot fer yer trouble."

It was the way Travers Gladwin handled the skirts of his coat in
getting at his money that convinced the wise chauffeur that he had no
real policeman to deal with. His grin came back and looped up behind
at either ear.

"I getcher, Steve," he broke out, reaching for the bill. "If it's
disguises ye're after hop inside an' I'll tool youse over to Mme.
Flynn's on Avenue A."

To demonstrate to his uniformed fare that speed laws in the greater
city of New York fail to impose any manner of hamper upon the
charioteering of the motor-driven hack, the chauffeur of this
canary-colored taxi scampered across town