"Orrie, he's not a burglar!" she cried out, in her treble-noted conviction.
"Then what is he?"
"He's a gentleman."
"What makes you think so?" demanded the indifferent Orrie as he motioned me, with a curt movement of his Colt-barrel, toward the hall door.
"I know by his nails!" was her inconsequential yet quite definite reply.
Orrie laughed.
"Then you'd give tea and macaroons to every burglarious barber out of Sing Sing," he scoffed. "And our real answer's waiting for us in Gramercy Square."
It seemed to take but a minute or two in the car to swing us from Twelfth Street up to Twentieth, and then eastward into the stillness of the square. My captors had insisted that I should not talk. "Not a word!" commanded Orrie, and I could feel his insolent gun-barrel against my ribs as he gave the command for the second time. They were drunk, I could see, with the intoxication of their exploit. They were preoccupied with inhaling their subtle sense of drama. With the dictatorial self-sufficiency of true inebriety they had enjoined me from every effort at explanation. The bubble, they felt, was far too pretty a one to be pricked.
They alighted, one in front of me and one behind me, still carrying their foolish and murderous-looking firearms. The girl remained in her seat. Then the three of us grimly ascended my steps.
"It's needless to ring the bell," I wearily explained. "My pass-key will admit you."