“But it doesn’t seem to me,” said Merry, “that it is just the quarter of the city in which a footpad would seek his prey.”
“Oh, I don’t know. There are apt to be more desperate characters here than elsewhere.”
“And for that very reason respectable persons whom it would pay to hold up and rob will keep away from here.”
“This is where sailors get drunk in the dives and are kicked out upon the street. They must be easy victims. A man could go through their clothes without much danger.”
“But they are not likely to have much money after they are kicked out upon the street.”
Hodge knew this was true. He realized that the seafaring man would be used well in a low dive till his money was gone, and then be kicked out.
“Still,” he said, “some of them must escape with money on their persons. Many times they are drunk enough to lie down almost anywhere and go to sleep. A sneak-thief can go through them while they are sleeping without——By Jove! see that! What did I tell you?”
In a dark doorway a drunken man was curled up fast asleep. Hooker was seen to halt suddenly and look sharply at the man. Then he approached the inebriate.
Frank Merriwell’s heart fluttered. What was he about to witness? In a twinkling his fancy pictured Hooker, a student of Yale, disguising himself in old clothes, and coming night after night to this wretched quarter to pick the pockets of the unfortunates of the streets.
Bart had clutched Merry’s arm, and he was pointing toward Hooker, hoarsely and triumphantly whispering: