“D’ yuh have to do this?” asked the wide-shouldered youth in uniform.
“No,” was the peddler’s mild yet guttural response.
The other prodded with his night-stick against the capacious overcoat pockets. Then he laughed.
“I’ll bet yuh’ve got about forty dollars stowed away in there,” he mocked. “Yuh have now, haven’t yuh?”
“I don’ know!” listlessly answered the sunken-shouldered figure.
“Then what’re yuh sellin’ this stuff for, if it ain’t for money?” persisted the vaguely piqued youth.
“I don’ know!” was the apathetic answer.
“Then who does?” inquired the indolent young officer, as he stood humming and rocking on his heels and swinging his stick by its wrist-thong.
The man known as Batty may or may not have been about to answer him. His lips moved, but no sound came from them. His attention, apparently, was suddenly directed elsewhere. For approaching him from the east his eyes had made out the familiar figure of old McCooey, the oldest plain-clothes man who still came out from Headquarters to “pound the pavement.”
And at almost the same time, approaching him from the west, he had caught sight of another figure.