A small boy had appeared. He seemed surprised to see visitors. Pugsy undertook to do the honors. Pugsy, as interpreter, was energetic, but not wholly successful. He appeared to have a fixed idea that the Italian language was one easily mastered by the simple method of saying "da" instead of "the," and adding a final "a" to any word that seemed to him to need one.

"Say, kid," he began, "has da rent-a-man come yet-a?"

The black eyes of the wop kid clouded. He gesticulated, and said something in his native language.

"He hasn"t got next," reported Master Maloney. "He can"t git on to me curves. Dese wop kids is all bone-heads. Say, kid, look-a here." He walked to the door, rapped on it smartly, and, a.s.suming a look of extreme ferocity, stretched out his hand and thundered: "Unbelt-a!

Slip-a me da stuff!"

The wop kid"s puzzlement in the face of this address became pathetic.

"This," said John, deeply interested, "is getting exciting. Don"t give in, Pugsy. I guess the trouble is that your too perfect Italian accent is making the kid homesick."

Master Maloney made a gesture of disgust.

"I"m t"roo. Dese Dagoes makes me tired. Dey don"t know enough to go upstairs to take de elevated. Beat it, you mutt," he observed with moody displeasure, accompanying the words with a gesture which conveyed its own meaning. The wop kid, plainly glad to get away, slipped down the stairs like a shadow.

Pugsy shrugged his shoulders.

"Boss," he said resignedly, "it"s up to youse."

John reflected.

"It"s all right," he said. "Of course, if the collector had been here, the kid wouldn"t be. All I"ve got to do is to wait."

He peered over the banisters into the darkness below.

"Not that it"s not enough," he said; "for of all the poisonous places I ever met this is the worst. I wish whoever built it had thought to put in a few windows. His idea of ventilation was apparently to leave a hole about the size of a lima bean and let the thing go at that."

"I guess there"s a door on to de roof somewhere," suggested Pugsy. "At de joint where I lives dere is."

His surmise proved correct. At the end of the pa.s.sage a ladder, nailed against the wall, ended in a large square opening, through which was visible, if not "that narrow strip of blue which prisoners call the sky," at any rate a tall brick chimney and a clothesline covered with garments that waved lazily in the breeze.

John stood beneath it, looking up.

"Well," he said, "this isn"t much, but it"s better than nothing. I suppose the architect of this place was one of those fellows who don"t begin to appreciate air till it"s thick enough to scoop chunks out with a spoon. It"s an acquired taste, I guess, like Limburger cheese. And now, Pugsy, old scout, you had better beat it. There may be a rough-house here any minute now."

Pugsy looked up, indignant.

"Beat it?"

"While your shoe-leather"s good," said John firmly. "This is no place for a minister"s son. Take it from me."

"I want to stop and pipe de fun," objected Master Maloney.

"What fun?"

"I guess you ain"t here to play ball," surmised Pugsy shrewdly, eying the big stick.

"Never mind why I"m here," said John. "Beat it. I"ll tell you all about it to-morrow."

Master Maloney prepared reluctantly to depart. As he did so there was a sound of well-shod feet on the stairs, and a man in a snuff-colored suit, wearing a brown Homburg hat and carrying a small notebook in one hand, walked briskly up the stairs. His whole appearance proclaimed him to be the long-expected collector of rents.

CHAPTER XXV

CORNERED

He did not see John for a moment, and had reached the door of the room when he became aware of a presence. He turned in surprise. He was a smallish, pale-faced man with protruding eyes and teeth which gave him a certain resemblance to a rabbit.

"h.e.l.lo!" he said.

"Welcome to our city," said John, stepping unostentatiously between him and the stairs.

Master Maloney, who had taken advantage of the interruption to edge back into the center of things, now appeared to consider the question of his departure permanently shelved. He sidled to a corner of the landing, and sat down on an empty soap box with the air of a dramatic critic at the opening night of a new play. The scene looked good to him. It promised interesting developments. He was an earnest student of the drama, as exhibited in the theaters of the East Side, and few had ever applauded the hero of "Escaped from Sing Sing," or hissed the villain of "Nellie, the Beautiful Cloak-model" with more fervor. He liked his drama to have plenty of action, and to his practised eye this one promised well. There was a set expression on John"s face which suggested great things.

His pleasure was abruptly quenched. John, placing a firm hand on his collar, led him to the top of the stairs and pushed him down.

"Beat it," he said.

The rent-collector watched these things with a puzzled eye. He now turned to John.

"Say, seen anything of the wops that live here?" he enquired. "My name"s Gooch. I"ve come to take the rent."

John nodded.

"I don"t think there"s much chance of your seeing them to-night," he said. "The father, I hear, is in prison. You won"t get any rent out of him."

"Then it"s outside for theirs," said Mr. Gooch definitely.

"What about the kid?" said John. "Where"s he to go?"

"That"s up to him. Nothing to do with me. I"m only acting under orders from up top."

"Whose orders?" enquired John.

"The gent who owns this joint."

"Who is he?"

Suspicion crept into the protruding eyes of the rent-collector.

"Say!" he demanded. "Who are you anyway, and what do you think you"re doing here? That"s what I"d like to know. What do you want with the name of the owner of this place? What business is it of yours?"

"I"m a newspaper man."

"I guessed you were," said Mr. Gooch with triumph. "You can"t bluff me.