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 Jerry made no reply but to shake his head a little at her; then he watched me.

"D'you suppose," Christina continued to me, "it's worth nothing to nobody—whoever sees him or gives him a hand or a cot or a meal—to do a squeal? Is everybody in this city so elegantly fixed that nobody could possibly find any use for twenty thousand smackers?"

"Keep still, Christina," Jerry said.

"How much do you need?" I asked him.

"How much can you drag with you?" the girl kept at me. "When you got to buy yourself past bulls and beefers, who can drag down twenty thou by simply settin' the squeal, how far do you suppose a dime'll go toward squarin' 'em?"

"Cut it, Christina," Jerry said this time. "Steve doesn't know how to be mean."

"Don't this time," she shot at me. "Have it with you along here at ten to-morrow night. If the old man can stick up ten thou to get him, can't you find something like it to help him away?" And she switched out the light.

I replied but stood in the dark and heard the door to the warehouse unbolted; I heard their steps within, echoing away. Outside, on the platform beside the river, somebody approached