“We are to meet the Gay Cat at the City Hall at nine o’clock,” explained Craig laconically.  “We are going to visit a haunt of yeggmen, Walter, that few outsiders have ever seen.  Are you game?  O’Connor and his men will be close by—­hiding, of course.”

“I suppose so,” I replied slowly.  “But what excuse are you going to have for getting into this yegg-resort?”

“Simply that we are two newspaper men looking for an article, without names, dates, or places—­just a good story of yeggmen and tramps.  I’ve got a little—­well, we’ll call it a little camera outfit that I’m going to sling over my shoulder.  You are the reporter, remember, and I’m the newspaper photographer.  They won’t pose for us, of course, but that will be all right.  Speaking about photographs, I got one out at Montclair that is interesting.  I’ll show it to you later in the evening—­and in case anything should happen to me, Walter, you’ll find the original plate locked here in the top drawer of my desk.  I guess we’d better be getting downtown.”

The house to which we were guided by the Gay Cat was on a cross street within a block or two of Chatham Square.  If we had passed it casually in the daytime there would have been nothing to distinguish it above the other ramshackle buildings on the street, except that the other houses were cluttered with children and baby-carriages, while this one was vacant, the front door closed, and the blinds tightly drawn.  As we approached, a furtive figure shambled from the basement areaway and slunk off into the crowd for the night’s business of pocket-picking or second-story work.

I had had misgivings as to whether we would be admitted at all—­I might almost say hopes—­but the Gay Cat succeeded in getting a ready response at the basement door.  The house itself was the dilapidated ruin of what had once been a fashionable residence in the days when society lived in the then suburban Bowery.  The iron handrail on the steps was still graceful, though rusted and insecure.  The stones of the steps were decayed and eaten away by time, and the front door was never opened.

As we entered the low basement door, I felt that those who entered here did indeed abandon hope.  Inside, the evidences of the past grandeur were still more striking.  What had once been a drawing-room was now the general assembly room of the resort.  Broken-down chairs lined the walls, and the floor was generously sprinkled with sawdust.  A huge pot-bellied stove occupied the centre of the room, and by it stood a box of sawdust plentifully discoloured with tobacco-juice.

Three or four of the “guests”—­there was no “register” in this yeggman’s hotel—­were seated about the stove discussing something in a language that was English, to be sure, but of a variation that only a yegg could understand.  I noted the once handsome white marble mantel, now stained by age, standing above the unused grate.  Double folding-doors led to what, I imagine, was once