Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/164

 viewing it with that impassive detachment peculiar to the metropolitan spectator on such occasions. Yet Sadie continued to cling to her pillar and scream.

"Aw, hell!" said Hunk, as he glanced apprehensively about the rain-swept Avenue. Then he suddenly backed away toward his cab.

"Beat it, Chick!" he called back. "There comes a cop!" And Chick promptly did as Hunk suggested.

Sadie Wimpel, although no longer exercising her lungs, still kept her arms wrapped about the box-pillar as the patrolman sauntered up. She even continued to cling to that pillar, blindly, perversely, as the officer stooped and made an effort to lift her to her feet.

"I'll show them wise babies!" she was sobbingly announcing, over and over again. The patrolman had her on her feet by this time. He suddenly stopped and turned her face to the light. Then she quietly and wearily relaxed on the broad bosom spangled with metal buttons. For it was the same officer, she saw, who had earlier in the week saved her from the over-zealous plain-clothes man still in ignorance of Washington's side-street "plant."