Mrs. Slawson checked the labored flow with a hand upon the girl’s knee.  “Where did you say your boardin’-house is?” she inquired abruptly.

“Ninety-fifth Street—­West—­Two
-hundred-and-eighty-five-and-a-half.”

“Good gracious!  An’ we’re only three blocks off there now!”

“But you said,” expostulated Claire helplessly, feeling herself propelled as by the hand of fate through the crowd toward the door.  “You said you live on One-hundred-and-sixteenth Street.”

“So I do, my dear, so I do!  But I’ve got some business to transack with a lady livin’ in Ninety-fifth Street—­West—­Two-hunderd-an’-eighty-five-an’-a-half.  Come along.  ‘Step lively,’ as my friend, this nice young man out here on the rear platform, says.”

CHAPTER II

They plodded along the flooded street in silence, Claire following after Martha Slawson like a small child, almost clutching at her skirts.  It was not easy to keep pace with the long, even strides that covered so much ground, and Claire fell into a steady pony-trot that made her breath come short and quick, her heart beat fast.  She dimly wondered what was going to happen, but she did not dare, or care, to ask.  It was comfort enough just to feel this great embodiment of human sympathy and strength beside her, to know she was no longer alone.

Before the house Martha paused a moment.

“Now, my dear, there ain’t goin’ to be nothin’ for you to do but just sit tight,” she vouchsafed reassuringly.  “Don’t you start to butt in (if you’ll pardon the liberty), no matter what I say.  I’m goin’ to be a perfect lady, never fear.  I know my place, an’ I know my dooty, an’ if your boardin’-house lady knows hers, there’ll be no trouble whatsomedever, so dontcher worry.”

She descended the three steps leading from the street-level down into the little paved courtyard below, and rang the basement bell.  A moment and an inner door was unlocked, flung open, and a voice from just within the grating of the closed iron area-gate asked curtly, “Well, what’s wanted?”

“Is this Mrs.——?  I should say, is this the lady of the house?” Martha Slawson’s voice was deep, bland, prepossessing.

“I’m Mrs. Daggett, yes, if that’s what you mean.”

“That’s what I mean.  My name’s Slawson.  Mrs. Sammy Slawson, an’ I come to see you on a little matter of business connected with a young lady who’s been lodgin’ in your house—­Miss Lang.”

Mrs. Daggett stepped forward, and unlatched the iron gate.  “Come in,” she said, in a changed voice, endeavoring to infuse into her acrid manner the grace of a belated hospitality.

Claire, completely hidden from view behind Martha Slawson’s heroic proportions, followed in her wake like a wee, foreshortened shadow as, at Mrs. Daggett’s invitation, Mrs. Slawson passed through the area gateway into the malodorous basement hall, and so to the dingy dining-room beyond.  Here a group of grimy-clothed tables seemed to have alighted in sudden confusion, reminding one of a flock of pigeons huddled together in fear of the vultures soon to descend on them with greedy, all-devouring appetites.