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his was a warm afternoon in June. It was humid after a morning’s rain. And City Hall Square was at once hot and moist and noisy and crowded, so that the very air seemed to be stifled and perspiring, as if it were panting with uproar and exhausted by the persecutions of haste. Barney was standing in the oppressive shade of the World building, with some limp newspapers under his arm—disguised in an old suit of clothes that he had outgrown and a cap that he had once discarded—perfunctorily making a show of seeking customers, and vacantly watching the faces that passed. He was supposed to be on the lookout for a suspect who had 258