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 take him to some secret den, and he would overhear everything they said, and then, when he had been rescued, his testimony would convict them of all the crimes that had ever been pictured in the Sunday supplements.

It was the thought of these crimes that made him pale. He remembered Corcoran’s “They’ll cut your throat, if they get half a chance.” And Babbing’s “They ’ll kill to get free.” He found himself afflicted with a cold crawling in his insides; and he wished that the plant might have been arranged so that Babbing could accompany him. His mind ran up into boyish trebles again when he imagined the bandits’ lair in which he would be hidden. It was a stage setting from a Bowery melodrama, and its general atmosphere was shudderful.

He was returned to the realities by the sight of the young crook who waited for him. The fellow was obviously nervous and in a hurry to get away; his anxiety put Barney more at ease, and he looked around the room as if he