“Where’s your room?”

“That isn’t the go.  Don’t want her there.  Pat Maley’s cellar is just over yonder.  We can get in from the alley.”

“Pat’s too greedy a devil.  There wouldn’t be anything left of her when he got through.  No, no, Pinky; I’ll have nothing to do with it if she’s to go into Pat Maley’s cellar.”

“Not much to choose between ’em,” answered Pinky.  “But it won’t do to parley here.  We must get her in somewhere.”

And she pushed open a gate as she spoke.  It swung back on one hinge and struck the fence with a bang, disclosing a yard that beggared description in its disorder and filth.  In the back part of this yard was a one-and-a-half-story frame building, without windows, looking more like an old chicken-house or pig-stye than a place for human beings to live in.  The loft over the first story was reached by ladder on the outside.  Above and below the hovel was laid off in kind of stalls or bunks furnished with straw.  There were about twenty of these.  It was a ten-cent lodging-house, filled nightly.  If this wretched hut or stye—­call it what you will—­had been torn down, it would not have brought ten dollars as kindling-wood.  Yet its owner, a gentleman (?) living handsomely up town, received for it the annual rent of two hundred and fifty dollars.  Subletted at an average of two dollars a night, it gave an income of nearly seven hundred dollars a year.  It was known as the “Hawk’s Nest,” and no bird of prey ever had a fouler nest than this.

As the gate banged on the fence a coarse, evil-looking man, wearing a dirty Scotch cap and a red shirt, pushed his head up from the cellar of the house that fronted on the street.

“What’s wanted?” he asked, in a kind of growl, his upper lip twitching and drawing up at one side in a nervous way, letting his teeth appear.

“We want to get this girl in for a little while,” said Pinky.  “We’ll take her away when she comes round.  Is anybody in there?” and she pointed to the hovel.

The man shook his head.

“How much?” asked Pinky.

“Ten cents apiece;” and he held out his hand.

Pinky gave him thirty cents.  He took a key from his pocket, and opened the door that led into the lower room.  The stench that came out as the door swung back was dreadful.  But poor Flora Bond was by this time so relaxed in every muscle, and so dead to outward things, that it was impossible to get her any farther.  So they bore her into this horrible den, and laid her down in one of the stalls on a bed of loose straw.  Inside, there was nothing but these stalls and straw—­not a table or chair, or any article of furniture.  They filled up nearly the entire room, leaving only a narrow passage between them.  The only means of ventilation was by the door.

As soon as Pinky and her companion in this terrible wickedness were alone with their victim, they searched her pocket for the key of her traveling-bag.  On finding it, Pinky was going to open it, when the other said,