Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/16

 afternoon crowds, and into B Street was swarming a motley throng of designers and engravers and plate-printers, side by side with stitchers and counters and sizers, with steel-press men and bull-gangers and oil-burners from the Ink Mill, all hurrying homeward after the day's work. They were part of a machinery which took on a touch of nobility because of its labyrinthine intricateness, because of its sheer unguessed complexities. Yet they were a mere company in that vast army which Chief Blynn and his agents were appointed both to appraise and protect. And they brought home to the haggard-eyed official so meditatively watching them a hint of the more immediate complications confronting him.

"You said you'd done Secret Service work before?" he asked, as he turned back to the girl.

"Yes."

"Where?"

"In Europe."

"Anywhere else?"

"Right here in America."

"For whom?"

"For yuh!"

The chief looked ponderously up from the papers