"I beg your pardon," said Susan, "but would you mind telling me where—" she had forgotten the address, fumbled in her bosom for the cards, showed him Blynn's card—"how I can get to this?"
The policeman nodded as he read the address. "Keep on this way, lady"—he pointed his baton south—"until you've passed four streets. At the fifth street turn east. Go one—two—three—four—five streets east. Understand?"
"Yes, thank you," said the girl with the politeness of deep gratitude.
"You'll be at Vine. You'll see the name on the street lamp.
Blynn's on the southwest corner. Think you can find it?"
"I'm sure I can."
"I'm going that way," continued the policeman. "But you'd better walk ahead. If you walked with me, they'd think you was pinched—and we'd have a crowd after us." And he laughed with much shaking of his fat, tightly belted body.
Susan contrived to force a smile, though the suggestion of such a disgraceful scene made her shudder. "Thank you so much. I'm sure I'll find it." And she hastened on, eager to put distance between herself and that awkward company.
"Don't mention it, lady," the policeman called after her, tapping his baton on the rim of his helmet, as a mark of elegant courtesy.
She was not at ease until, looking back, she no longer saw the bluecoat for the intervening crowds. After several slight mistakes in the way, she descried ahead of her a large sign painted on the wall of a three-story brick building: