Page:Arthur Stringer--The House of Intrigue.djvu/84

74 already slipped by. The plain-clothes man was bearing down on him.

I could feel the man on the bench shoving the pigskin wallet in under me. I neither moved nor spoke. I merely sat tight. The singed cat had stopped directly in front of us.

"What're you doing in over your dead-line?" that officer was inquiring of my new-found friend.

"I'm workin'!" announced the man on the bench.

"Working?" echoed the cop. "So I see—and pulling the old stuff right on the avenue! So I guess, Pinky, we'll have to toddle along."

The man beside me, I noticed, had taken on a heavy and sullen look.

"I haven't set foot on that avenue for seven weeks," he protested.

"You weren't up Fifth Avenue there twenty minutes ago?" demanded the officer.

"I've been right here on this bench for the last hour and a half," announced the other man.

"Working, I suppose?" mocked the guardian of the law. But it was plain enough to Pinky that his tormentor stood none too sure of his ground. "Why, this lady here knows I've been on this bench for over forty minutes," declared that king