"Ah-a-a-a!"
"Beg pardon, sir, but I—"
"What?"
The military-appearing man sat up with a jerk into sudden stiffness, while the soft light died out of his eyes.
"New York papers?"
"Don't want the New York papers—any of them!"
The man, after a swift glance from his green-covered book, again let his eyes seek its pages. The ghost of a smile flickered around his lips.
"Chicago, then. The latest—"
". . . your hook being fastened through the skin of his leg, toward the upper part of it; and lastly I will give you—"
"Something livelier in the way of reading, sir, if you wish it!" broke in the voice of the newsboy who had stopped beside the parlor-car chair of the military-looking traveler, interrupting the reading of the little green-covered book. "I have a new detective story—"