“Oh, it’s you!” he exclaimed. “You scared the daylights out o’ me, coming in so quiet-like.”
“I believe a burglar could carry off half the building and you never would know it, Herm,” Flash said in a joking tone.
“It ain’t so!” the watchman denied vigorously. “I make my rounds every hour just as I’m supposed to do.”
“How come I couldn’t find you around during the last hour?”
“Were you lookin’ for me?” Old Herm asked innocently. “Did you go down into the basement?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“That’s probably where I was. What is it you want?”
“Nothing now,” replied Flash. “It’s too late. Well, so long, see you tomorrow.”
Without a backward glance, he sauntered from the composing room and made his way to the street. Riding home in the bus, he thought over what he had learned. Old Herm was not the honest, genial person he once had believed him to be. The watchman neglected his duties, lied about it, and displayed a decided tendency to pry.
“Wonder what he was doing in that supply cupboard when I surprised him?” he reflected. “Old Herm acted as guilty as the dickens!”