The Argosy, Christmas 1912 — page 138: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

124 zles he sat, and bolted through the win- dow of the cab, glass, shade, and all. CHAPTER VI. OUT OF THE FRYING-PAN. SITTING in utter silence, not daring to ask any of the multitudinous ques- tions that whirled through his mind, Lewis listened with straining ears to the progress of the cab. Perhaps he could gather from the street-noises outside some hint of where they were bound. Suddenly he caught a change in the hoofbeats. Still striking on asphalt, but with a duller, more hollow plop- plopping of iron on the hard tar, as though the passage across the roof of a subterranean chamber. A bridge! What was it; they were crossing the bridge from the west side of the city to the east side. So their destination lay somewhere in that quarter. Lewis’s lips tightened distrustfully. There were a great many rookeries, low dives, etc., located in certain sections of this locality. The Cherry Roost, for instance. A nice prospect if he was being taken to that same roost: now. But what reason was there for the plight he was in now? None what- ever that a sane man could discover. At that moment the cab halted. Lewis steeled himself to be ready for anything, as the fat man, pocketing his pistol, opened the door. | “Get out,” laconically ordered the other man. | Following the fat person, Lewis de- scended to the pavement and started to take a glance around at his surround- ings. At once, though, he was pushed rapidly across the sidewalk, up a dingy flight of steps, and into the’ vestibule at the top of the stoop before which the cab had drawn up. Opening the front door, the stout stranger, aided by his companion, hus- tled Lewis inside, then swiftly closed the portal. THE ARGOSY. “ Right along!” invited the fat man, breathing a deep sigh of selief. “ Up we go—this way! ” And he started up a long flight of stairs, whose threadbare carpet offered several pitfalls for unwary feet in the form of gaping holes. Lewis and the other followed close behind. One landing, lighted by a turned- down gas-jet in a broken china globe, was reached. Then they went up an- other flight of stairs to another land- ing, along this to a door which, after unlocking, the fat man threw open, stepping across the threshold of a sparsely furnished room and striking a match along the leg of his trousers. “All right, Brady,” he called back over his shoulder. The gas-light flared up as Lewis and the other man entered the room. The key was in the door, and his compan- ion, turning, removed it and inserted it on the inside. Then he shut that door and locked it, testing its security by shaking the knob. ‘“ Now we're all cozy! ” chuckled the plump person, dropping down in a chair with a puffing explosion of breath. He took out his handkerchief—not a very white one, if the truth be told— and mopped his ruddy countenance. The reporter, his own face standing out with a moisture not entirely pro- duced by physical exertion, would have liked mightily to imitate him in the ac- tion, but, unfortunately, he was still de- terred from the free use of his hands by a matter of a pound or so of steel that depended from his wrists. “ Sit down,” growled the man called Brady, nodding to the side of a bed that had not yet been made up. Passing Lewis on the way from the door, he took the one other chair in the room. The reporter stepped back and did as he was bid, perching gingerly on the extreme rim of the tumbled mat- tress. And there he faced his two com- panions. “Well?” the reporter inquired: His tone was grim. CoOMmicbook CO