Streets--might give them something at one of the "over the
Rhine" music halls, as a last resort. She noted the address, put
away the cards and walked on, looking about for a policeman.
Soon she came to a bridge over a muddy stream--a little river,
she thought at first, then remembered that it must be the
canal--the Rhine, as it was called, because the city's huge
German population lived beyond it, keeping up the customs and
even the language of the fatherland. She stood on the bridge,
watching the repulsive waters from which arose the stench of
sewage; watching canal boats dragged drearily by mules with
harness-worn hides; followed with her melancholy eyes the course
of the canal under bridge after bridge, through a lane of dirty,
noisy factories pouring out from lofty chimneys immense clouds
of black smoke. It ought to have been a bright summer day, but
the sun shone palely through the dense clouds; a sticky, sooty
moisture saturated the air, formed a skin of oily black ooze
over everything exposed to it. A policeman, a big German, with
stupid honest face, brutal yet kindly, came lounging along.

"I beg your pardon," said Susan, "but would you mind telling me
where--" she had forgotten the address, fumbled in her bosom for
the cards, showed him Blynn's card--"how I can get to this?"

The policeman nodded as he read the address. "Keep on this
way, lady"--he pointed his baton south--"until you've passed
four streets. At the fifth street turn east. Go
one--two--three--four--five streets east. Understand?"

"Yes, thank you," said the girl with the politeness of deep gratitude.

"You'll be at Vine. You'll see the name on the street lamp.
Blynn's on the southwest corner. Think you can find it?"

"I'm sure I can."

"I'm going that way," continued the policeman. "But you'd
better walk ahead. If you walked with me, they'd think you was
pinched--and we'd have a crowd after us." And he laughed
with much shaking of his fat, tightly belted body.

Susan contrived to force a smile, though the suggestion of such
a disgraceful scene made her shudder. "Thank you so much. I'm
sure I'll find it." And she hastened on, eager to put distance
between herself and that awkward company.

"Don't mention it, lady," the policeman called after her, tapping
his baton on the rim of his helmet, as a mark of elegant courtesy.

She was not at ease until, looking back, she no longer saw the
bluecoat for the intervening crowds. A