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For three hours he writhed on that door-step, till he came to hate it; it was as much a prison as his room at the Zapps' had been. He hated the areaway grill, and a big brown spot on the pavement, and, as a truck-driver hates a motorman, so did he hate a pudgy woman across the street who peeped out from a second-story window and watched him with cynical interest.
Any house would have been easy for "Crackerjack" if he had possessed the open sesame of his kit of burglar's tools, but he had not had a jimmy in his hand since he was caught with one and sent to Sing Sing. He had examined house after house, trusting to luck as he wandered on, and, lo! fortune favoured him. The clock in a nearby church struck the hour of two. The areaway was dark.
He put the pink check into his waistcoat pocket, switched out the room light, locked the door of the room on the outside, took the key with him and went down in an elevator, taking care to avoid using the same elevator that shortly before brought him up to this floor level. Presently he was outside the hotel, hurrying afoot on his return to Broadway. On the way he pitched the key into an areaway.
Say, I didn't mean to get huffy, Morty. But, doggone you, old man, you can't shake me this easy. I sye, old top, I'm peeved; yessir. We'll go Dutch to a lodging-house, or even walk the streets." "All right, sir; all right. I'll take you up on that. We'll sleep in an areaway some place." They walked to the outskirts of Liverpool, questing the desirable dark alley.
She decided to walk fast and long and ran downstairs out into the little areaway that ran like an alley from stage entrance to sidewalk. A newly installed nickelodeon, adjoining, was already lighted, throwing out a hard white shine and tinned music at the instance of five cents in the slot.
"Are we allowed to receive men visitors in the house?" chorused a group of girls, questioned in a fashionable employment agency. "Mostly our friends are not allowed to step inside the areaway while we are putting on our hats to go out."
Opening from the areaway back of the buildings was another gate, that the fleeing Mexican had not time to close; beyond was the blank wall of fog filling the side street with soft gray density. In much less time than I write it, James was out through the gate on to the lustrous black sidewalk, polished with the moisture.
"Shall we go into the library for coffee," said Indiman, a little abruptly, and I could see that Ellison's chatter was beginning to get on his nerves; my own were vibrating like harp-strings. I walked over to one of the library windows and looked out, just in time to catch sight of a man backing quickly into the shadow of the areaway opposite.
The android, seeing his escape cut off, veered into an areaway. The patrolman got there first and plunged in after him. Taber, gasps tearing at his lungs, arrived thirty seconds later. During that time, he'd expected the sound of shots from the patrolman's gun. But there was silence. He braked on his heels, skidded into the areaway, and saw the android advancing on the patrolman.
Perhaps I was shadowed by the watchers in the areaway. I neither knew nor cared. My one idea was to catch up with the child, and this time luck was with me. The little girl acknowledged shyly that she had learned the tune from a hand-organ. "It belongs to my uncle Bartolomeo," she explained, proudly. "It is a good organ, signore.
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