Tain't
half, but it'll do"--and he hurried across the sidewalk, and disappeared
inside a saloon.

Oaths, voicing a passion that rocked the Flopper to his soul, purled in
a torrid stream from his lips, and for a moment made him forget the
proximity of the brass buttons. He raised his fist, that still clenched
some of the money, and shook it after the other--and his fist, uplifted
in midair, was caught in a vicious grip--the harness bull was standing
over him.

"Beat it!" rasped the officer roughly, "or I'll--hullo, what you got
here? Open your hand!"--he gave a sharp twist as he spoke, the
Flopper's fingers uncurled, and the money dropped into the policeman's
other hand--held conveniently below the Flopper's.

"It's mine--gimme it back," whined the Flopper.

"Yours! Yours, is it!" growled the officer. "Where'd you get it? Stole
it, eh? Go on, now, beat it--or I'll run you in! Beat it!"

With twitching fingers, the Flopper picked up his cap, placed it on his
head and sidled away. Ten yards along, in the shadow of the buildings
again, he looked back--the officer was still standing there, twirling
his stick, one hand just emerging from his pocket. The Flopper's finger
nails scratched along the stone pavement and curved into the palm of his
hand until the skin under the knuckles was bloodless white, and his lips
moved in ugly, whispered words--then, still whispering, he went on
again.

Down the Bowery he went like a human toad, keeping in the shadows,
keeping his eyes on the ground before him, a glint like a shudder in
their depths--on he went with hopping, lurching jerks, with whispering
lips. Street after street he passed, and then at a corner he turned and
went East--not far, only to the side entrance of the saloon on the
corner known, to those who _knew_, as the "Roost."

The door before which he stopped, on a level with the street, might
readily have passed for the entrance to one of the adjoining tenements,
for it was innocent to all appearances of any connection with the
unlovely resort of which it was a part--and it was closed.

The Flopper rang no bell. After a quick glance around him to assure
himself that he was not observed, he reached up for the doorknob, turned
it, and with surprising agility hopped oven the threshold and closed the
door behind him.

A staircase, making one side of a narrow and dimly lighted hall, from
down whose length came muffled sounds from the barroom, was before him;
and this,