“All the same—”
The speaker approached the door, but when a slam announced its shutting the nimble listener was out of sight.
It was barely half an hour afterwards when a man stepped out of the room and beckoned Blue into the corridor.
“Say,” he began in a hushed voice, “my kid’s sick. Can you go for the doctor? I’ll pay you,” he added, as the boy hesitated.
“How much?”
“A quarter.”
“What doctor you want?” came with an indifference that Blue did not feel. Quarters were not picked up every day right in The Flatiron.
“Dr. Alford, up on Boniface Street,” returned the man with a wary glint in his narrow eyes.
“Boniface Street! Why, that’s a mile, sure! There’s a doctor round the corner—”
“It’s Dr. Alford or none!” interrupted the man defiantly.