ranged that a hack should be drawn up
early in the evening in front of the entrance to the office, and
bags and boxes were brought out and piled upon the seat beside the
driver. We then half dragged, half lifted Hawkins up the stairs
and on the roof by means of a shaky ladder and conducted him across
the leads to the scuttle of the tenement-house. At this juncture,
by prearrangement, three of our clerks, one of whom somewhat
resembled Hawkins in size and who was arrayed in the latter's coat
and hat, rushed out of the office and climbed into the hack, which
at once set off at a furious gallop up Centre Street. Coincidentally
Gottlieb and I escorted our still maudlin prisoner down the narrow
stairs at the other end of the block and cajoled him into getting
into a sack, which the Italian placed in the bottom of the cart
and covered with greens. I now put on a disguise, consisting of
a laborer's overalls and tattered cap, while Gottlieb wheeled out
a safety bicycle which had been carefully concealed in the basement.

I had ten thousand dollars in the pocket of my ragged trousers and
a forty-four-calibre revolver at my hip. Gottlieb drew me back
into the shadow and whispered harshly in my ear.

"Quib," said he, "this fellow must never come back!--do you
understand? Once the district attorney gets hold of him, it's all
up with us! It's Sing Sing for each of us--ten years of it! For
God's sake, hire somebody to put him out of the way!--quietly.
Many a man would take him off our hands for a thousand or so."

I shuddered at the cold-blooded suggestion, yet I did not utter
one word of refusal, and must have led Gottlieb to believe that I
was of a mind with him, for he slapped me on the shoulder and bade
me good luck. Good luck! Was ever a man of decent birth and
education forced upon such an errand? The convoying of a drunken
criminal to--where? I knew not--somewhere whence he could not
return.

Thus I set forth into the night upon my bicycle, my money bulging
in my pocket, my pistol knocking against the seat at every turn of
the wheel, my trousers catching and tearing in the pedals. At last
I crossed the bridge and turned into the wastes of Queens. Gas-
houses, factories, and rotting buildings loomed black and weird
against the sky. I pedaled on and at last found myself upon a
country road. I dared not ask my way, but luckily I had stumbled
upon the highway to Port Washington, whence there was a ferry to
th