Page:Arthur Stringer - The Shadow.djvu/305

 enough, could have been seen a vague and wistful note of expectancy, a guarded and muffled sense of anticipation.

Yet to-day, as on all other days, nobody stopped to study the old cement-seller's face. The pink-cheeked young patrolman, swinging back on his beat, tattooed with his ash night-stick on the gas-pipe frame and peered indifferently down at the battered and gibbeted crockery.

"Hello, Batty," he said as he set the exhibit oscillating with a push of the knee. "How 's business?"

"Pretty good," answered the patient and guttural voice. But the eyes that seemed as calm as a cow's eyes did not look at the patrolman as he spoke.

He had nothing to fear. He knew that he had his license. He knew that under the faded green of his overcoat was an oval-shaped street-peddler's badge. He also knew, which the patrolman did not, that under the lapel of his inner coat was a badge of another shape and design, the badge which season by season