a library.  Dirt and grime indescribable were everywhere.  There was the smell of old clothes and old cooking, the race odours of every nationality known to the metropolis.  I recalled a night I once spent in a Bowery lodging-house for “local colour.”  Only this was infinitely worse.  No law regulated this house.  There was an atmosphere of cheerlessness that a half-blackened Welsbach mantle turned into positive ghastliness.

Our guide introduced us.  There was a dead silence as eight eyes were craftily fixed on us, sizing us up.  What should I say?  Craig came to the rescue.  To him the adventure was a lark.  It was novel, and that was merit enough.

“Ask about the slang,” he suggested.  “That makes a picturesque story.”

It seemed to me innocuous enough, so I engaged in conversation with a man whom the Gay Cat had introduced as the proprietor.  Much of the slang I already knew by hearsay, such as “bulls” for policemen, a “mouthpiece” for a lawyer to defend one when he is “ditched” or arrested; in fact, as I busily scribbled away I must have collected a lexicon of a hundred words or so for future reference.

“And names?” I queried.  “You have some queer nicknames.”

“Oh, yes,” replied the man.  “Now here’s the Gay Cat—­that’s what we call a fellow who is the finder, who enters a town ahead of the gang.  Then there’s Chi Fat—­that means he’s from Chicago and fat.  And Pitts Slim—­he’s from Pittsburgh and—­”

“Aw, cut it,” broke in one of the others.  “Pitts Slim’ll be here to-night.  He’ll give you the devil if he hears you talking to reporters about him.”

The proprietor began to talk of less dangerous subjects.  Craig succeeded in drawing out from him the yegg recipe for making “soup.”  “It’s here in this cipher,” said the man, drawing out a dirty piece of paper.  “It’s well known, and you can have this.  Here’s the key.  It was written by ‘Deafy’ Smith, and the police pinched it.”

Craig busily translated the curious document: 

Take ten or a dozen sticks of dynamite, crumble it up fine, and put it in a pan or washbowl, then pour over it enough alcohol, wood or pure, to cover it well.  Stir it up well with your hands, being careful to break all the lumps.  Leave it set for a few minutes.  Then get a few yards of cheesecloth and tear it up in pieces and strain the mixture through the cloth into another vessel.  Wring the sawdust dry and throw it away.  The remains will be the soup and alcohol mixed.  Next take the same amount of water as you used of alcohol and pour it in.  Leave the whole set for a few minutes.

“Very interesting,” commented Craig.  “Safeblowing in one lesson by correspondence school.  The rest of this tells how to attack various makes, doesn’t it?”

Just then a thin man in a huge, worn ulster came stamping upstairs from the basement, his collar up and his hat down over his eyes.  There was something indefinably familiar about him, but as his face and figure were so well concealed, I could not tell just why I thought so.