“You’d see what nobody else would,” laughed Blue. “Yes, I guess it’s her fast enough.” He shook his head sadly. “Wish I knew where they’ve gone. I don’t see how they could lug all those chairs and things—”
“Say! you don’t s’pose they could get ’em into the triangle, do you?” Doodles’s soft voice lowered hesitantly.
“Naw!” scouted Blue. “Why, ther’ wouldn’t be room for half their duds, let alone themselves. Besides, they couldn’t get in—door’s always locked—and they couldn’t stay in if they did!”
“I know,” Doodles agreed, “it’s little and stuffy.”
“Stuffy! I guess it is now! When that old tramp made such a row over it, ’t wasn’t such awful hot weather, but he couldn’t stand it only one night. He said it wasn’t fit to put a dog in, if you wanted any more of the dog. Ther’ ’s just one little mite of a skylight—why, the kid couldn’t live there a minute!—no, the crowd ain’t in that hole!”
“I s’pose not,” replied Doodles sadly. “I only thought—”
Blue did not heed the unfinished sentence. With all his arguments to the contrary, he was wondering if it were possible for them to—but, no, of course, it couldn’t be!
Beyond the sink the passageway narrowed, and led to a closet where by means of a rough ladder one might climb to the roof. At the foot of these steps Blue presently stood, telling himself that he was a fool for taking any pains to prove such an absurd idea. Yet he mounted the ladder, and gained a view of the broad expanse of shabby tin that covered The Flatiron, and the big, crumbling chimneys,—that was all. The tiny skylight, which was what he had come to inspect, was behind a chimney, only a bit of the framework being visible.
“Of course, it isn’t open,” he muttered; “it never is! A week ago, when Winkle was in there, it was shut tight as a drum. And he locked that door all right, too,—I heard him!” He started down the steps, and then halted. “I’ll find out!” he decided, and turned again.
At the top, he threw a foot from the opening; but the rusty tin cracked warningly. “Bother!” he ejaculated, and drew back.