Page:Henry rideout--The siamese cat.djvu/199

 Down an alley of shops, that smelled deliciously of mature fish and frying ducks, he frolicked in the spirit of holiday. The threatening feet still pounded the flagstones, but more faintly in the distance. This fitful flight, this easy escape, was such a lark as—

In the very nick of exultation, a pair of white-swaddled legs darted across the path, dark fingers gripped him behind the ears, and an oily, grinning black man, in a tinsel-broidered skull cap, swung him into a dim-lighted shop. He thumped the matting like a landed fish, fighting gamely. Acrid smoke filled the air, diffusing in spirals above a blossom of red coal that grew, tall-stalked, from the fat, gleaming brass belly of a hookah.

Suddenly he was hurled through a narrow door, which slammed behind him. In this new prison there was nothing likable—a dirty charpoy, a few dishes around a brazier, a box