"I don't care—(a sniff)—when I'm rich, I'll go to Budd's for an up-to-date dinner, you bet—(a snuffle)—I'll probably go there every day of my life—(two snuffles)—yes, sir—Sundays and all!"
I cheered him as best I could.
His sister had saved her day to a happy end, babbling off to bed with the distressing Irene, to whom she would show a book of pictures until sleep shut off her little eyelid.
A wise old man—I believe he was a bishop—once said he knew "that outside the real world is a world of fine fabling."
I had stolen a day from that world. Now I hurried through the gloom of the hall, past the poor striving hands, to sit with Solon Denney and tell him of a peculiar thing I had observed during the afternoon's walk.
[CHAPTER VIII]
ADVENTURE OF BILLY DURGIN, SLEUTH
I spoke to Solon of Billy Durgin, whose peculiar, not to say mysterious, behavior I had been compelled to notice. I had first observed him that afternoon as we passed the City Hotel. Through the window of the little wash-room, where I saw that he was polishing a pair of shoes, he had winked at me from over his task, and then erected himself to make a puzzling gesture with one hand. Again, while we stood dream-bound before the window of the corner drug store, he had sent me a low whistle from across the street, following this with another puzzling arm wave; whereat he had started toward us. But instead of accosting me, as I had thought he meant to, he rushed by, with eyes rigidly ahead and his thin jaws grimly set. Throughout the stroll he haunted us, adhering to this strange line of conduct. I would turn a corner, to find Billy apparently waiting for me a block off. Then would follow a signal of no determinable import, after which he would walk swiftly past me as if unaware of my presence. Once I started to address him, but was met with "Not a word!" hissed at me in his best style from between clenched teeth.
I decided at last that Billy was playing a game of his own. For Billy Durgin, though sixteen years old, had happy access to our world of fine fabling; and to this I knew he resorted at those times when his duties as porter at the City Hotel palled upon his romantic spirit.
Billy, in short, was a detective, well soaked in the plenteous literature of his craft and living in the dream that criminals would one day shudder at the bare mention of his name.