THE AVENGER.
A man in a heavy overcoat and a slouch hat was walking rapidly through one of the streets of New York leading into a squalid quarter of the East Side. Twice he stepped past a corner and stood there some time, observing the persons who passed in the direction he had been walking. Once he stepped quickly into a doorway and stood there peering back along the street until he seemed satisfied and concluded to resume his walk.
Plainly this man feared he might be followed.
Finally on a block not far from the river, where everything looked wretched and poverty-stricken, he ascended the low steps of a house and quickly entered a doorway. The uncarpeted hall was dirty and dark. The stairs were worn and sagged a little.
Two flights of stairs did the man climb, and then, in a significant manner, he rapped on a door at the back of the house. There was a stir within the room. The door was flung open by a slender, dark-faced, dark-eyed boy, who joyously exclaimed:
"Welcome, Señor Hagan! You were a great time coming."
The man stepped into the little room, and the door was closed behind him.
"Lock it, Felipe!" he exclaimed. "Take no chances of having some one walk in on us without warning, me boy."
The key was turned in the lock.
There was a bed, a chair, and a washstand in the room. The floor was uncarpeted and the walls unpapered.