"Well, about half past two yes'day, old man come into the office for his package all right. Soon as I see him I slides out and waits for him outside. Say he was cagy all right. He had a hunch he was being trailed. Dodged in one door of the Knickerbocker and out again by another. In the Forty-Second street building he tried to shake me by riding in different elevators, but I stuck to him all right. Me cousin was right there too, with his tongue hanging out."
"He took to the Subway next. Got on an up-town local at Grand Central. I got in the next car because I thought he might reco'nize me, but me cousin sits down right opposite him. Well after we left Times Square station he comes into my car, gives me a hard look, and sits down beside me. Say, me heart was going like a compressed air riveter."
"He says to me: 'Don't you work at 1118 Broadway?' and I says: 'Yes, sir.' He says: 'I guess you worked for me sometimes,' and I looks at him hard and makes out to reco'nize him for the first, and says: 'Yes, sir.' He says: 'You carried a little package for me up to the Hotel Beanvenoo yes'day.' I says: 'Yes, sir. The lady was out, so I brung it back.'"
"'Hm!' says he, like that, and looks at me real hard for a minute, I guess. He's got blue eyes that make holes in you like bay'nits. But he didn't get any change off a me. Then he says real sudden-like: 'Has anybody been trying to fix you?' 'Why no sir!' I says with a baby stare. 'I dunno what you mean.'"
"'Where you going now?' says he. I hadda say somepin real quick. I says: 'I gotta deliver a letter up-town.' 'Where?' 'Seventy-Second street.' He says: 'Let me see it.' I says: ''Gainst the rules, boss.' He laughs sneery like."
"By this time the train was pulling into Fiftieth. 'Well I get out here' he says, sticking me with those eyes again. And there he left me flat. What could I do. But I look and I see me cousin is hep, so I know all ain't lost yet. As the train pulls out I see that kid foller him up the stairs."
"Well I chases home, and changes me clo'es. I puts on the toughest rig I got. Then I went down to Mis' Harvest's store and waited 'round. Mis' Harvest keeps a little candy and stationery store under my house. Me cousin and me, we never plague her like the other kids does, and she lets us sort of stick around. We use her phone in our business. We had agreed if we got separated, the one who lost the trail was to go to Mis' Harvest's and wait for a call."
"Me cousin calls me up about four o'clock. He says the old man is sitting in the Knickerbocker bar, drinking and talking to a feller, and if I hustle maybe I can git there before he leaves. Well, I meets me cousin outside the door of the bar, and he says the old man is still inside. He patrols the Broadway side, and I takes the Forty-Second street entrance, and we meet at the corner, and exchange signals.
"Bye and bye old man comes out my cousin's door, and the two of us take after him down Broadway. At Fortieth street, old man turns real sudden and grabs hold me cousin. There was a cop there. Old man says: 'Officer, this boy has been follerin' me all afternoon!' Cop takes a grip on me cousin; say, maybe that kid wasn't scared! Cop says: 'What do you want to annoy this gen'leman for?' but me cousin was mum as a dummy! Cop says: 'Do you want to lay 'a complaint, sir?' Old man says: 'Haven't time. Just warn him, and let him go.' So the cop boots me cousin down the side street, and old man goes on down Broadway. But I was right there steppin' on his heels. He never thought of looking at me in me old clothes."
"Well now he thought he was clear of us all, and he didn't bother about coverin' his tracks no more. He crosses Broadway, and comes back tutter side. He only made one stop. That was in a cigar store. He telephoned from the booth. Then he led me straight to the house on 48th near 7th, an old private house it was, that's been turned into stores and offices. There was no elevator nor nothing.