First he gave a long whistle, then he blinked his eyes several times, and then he set to work, systematically, to investigate his prison.
A few quick glances showed him he was in a woman’s room, and one recently occupied. There were hairpins on the dresser and a pair of curling tongs beside them. The furniture was of black walnut, old-fashioned but of good workmanship. The bed was neatly made up, and the closet, into which Fibsy looked, was empty, save for a pair of woman’s shoes and an old skirt or two.
There was one other door, and pulling it open, the boy found it led to a bathroom, plain and clean, not at all luxuriously appointed.
He put his head out of the bathroom window. There was a sheer drop of three stories to the ground. This was on the same airshaft as the bedroom window gave on. The windows on the other side of the shaft were in the next house, and were all with closely drawn shades.
“Gee!” thought Fibsy, “I must set me bean to woikin’—”
In critical moments, Fibsy, even in thought, reverted to his street slang, though he was honestly trying to break himself of the habit.
“I’m in a swell house,” he assured himself, “an’ this is the woik-goil’s room. Folks all gone to the country, an’ neighbors all gone, too. Oh, I’m on. Dis ain’t no mistake, I’m kidnapped,—that’s what’s come my way! Now, who does it?”
But though he had the whole afternoon to put uninterrupted thought on that question, it remained unanswered. He cudgeled his brain to remember any one by the name of Auchincloss, without success. He pondered deeply over the possible reasons any one could have for incarcerating him in this way, but could think of none. He returned at last to his theory of mistaken identity, and concluded that he had been mistaken for some one else.
Though with a subconsciousness of its futility, he banged on the door, and he hung out of the window and yelled, and he stamped and pounded and banged in every way he could think of, without getting the least response of any sort.
The awful thought struck him that he was to be left here to starve to death, and this so awed him that he sat perfectly still for two minutes, and then began to make a racket with redoubled vigor.