steel jimmy, and a bunch of skeleton keys, were
distributed among the other pockets of his smart tweed suit.

Jimmie Dale changed from the bus to the subway, leaving behind him,
strewn over many blocks, the tiny and minute fragments into which he had
torn her letter; at Astor Place he left the subway, walked to Broadway,
turned uptown for a block to Eighth Street, then along Eighth Street
almost to Sixth Avenue--and stopped.

A rather shabby shop, a pitiful sort of a place, displaying in its
window a heterogeneous conglomeration of cheap odds and ends, ink
bottles, candy, pencils, cigarettes, pens, toys, writing pads, marbles,
and a multitude of other small wares, confronted him. Within, a little,
old, sweet-faced, gray-haired woman stood behind the counter, pottering
over the rearrangement of some articles on the shelves.

"My word!" said Jimmie Dale softly to himself. "You wouldn't believe it,
would you! And I've always wondered how these little stores managed to
make both ends meet. Think of that old soul making fifteen or twenty
thousand dollars from a layout like this--even if it has taken her a
lifetime!"

Jimmie Dale had halted nonchalantly and unconcernedly by the curb,
not too near the window, busied apparently in an effort to light a
refractory cigarette; and then, about to enter the store, he gazed
aimlessly across the street for a moment instead. A man came briskly
around the corner from Sixth Avenue, opened the store door, and went in.

Jimmie Dale drew back a little, and turned his head again as the door
closed--and a sudden, quick, alert, and startled look spread over his
face.

The man who had entered bent over the counter and spoke to the old lady.
She seemed to listen with a dawning terror creeping over her features,
and then her hands went piteously to the thin hair behind her ears. The
man motioned toward a door at the rear of the store. She hesitated,
then came out from behind the counter, and swayed a little as though her
limbs would not support her weight.

Jimmie Dale's lips thinned.

"I'm afraid," he muttered slowly, "I'm afraid that I'm too late even
now." And then, as she came to the door and turned the key on the
inside: "Pray Heaven she doesn't turn the light out--or somebody might
think I was trying to break in!"

But in that respect Jimmie Dale's fears were groundless. She did not
turn out either of the gas jets that lighted the little shop; instead,
in a faltering, reluctant so