The clerk didn't know. They left the hotel after inquiring the way to Bank street, but he couldn't tell what business they had on hand, or how long they would be gone.
"They'll show up when they get ready," said Roy. "In the mean time, if you will give me the key to forty-seven, I will go up and try to make myself a little more presentable."
"What have you been doing to get yourself into such a plight?" asked the interested clerk.
"The story is too long to be told in detail, and all I can say just now is that I have had a time of it. But if Rowe got away I don't care. I would go through as much more to help him, although he is a perfect stranger to me. Don't say anything about this, please, for I positively decline to be interviewed. I don't want my folks to hear of it, for fear they will order me home," added Roy to himself. "That's the plain English of the matter."
So saying he took his key and went up to his room.
ROY IN TROUBLE.
You will remember that it was during the crush which occurred at the Academy of Music when the "gallery gods" came pouring down into the main hall from both sides, that Roy Sheldon became separated from his friends Joe and Arthur. While he was making his way slowly toward the door, he felt a hand laid upon his arm, and without turning his head to see who it was, supposing, of course, that one of his companions was close at his side, Roy took hold of the hand and drew it through his arm. When he reached the sidewalk he looked around to say something uncomplimentary regarding the rough fellow who had elbowed him rather too sharply in his haste to get out, and then he found that it was not a boy who had hold of him, but a man whom he had never seen before—a brown-whiskered man dressed in gray clothes. Thinking of the swindler whom he and his friends had encountered during the early part of the evening, Roy made an effort to twist himself out of the stranger's grasp, but found that he could not do it. The man had a grip like a vise.