"Once the newspaper guys get hold of me, and print my picture on the front page, I'm a marked man," he was thinking, "I couldn't walk down the street then, without a crowd following. It would be a cinch for this gang to keep tab on me, and a fat chance I'd have of getting anything on them. So I've got to keep out of the papers if I can. That's decided.
"But it's not going to be so easy. For the more of a mystery I make of myself the hotter they'll get on my trail. A paper like the Sphere, I suppose, would spend a hundred thousand to run me down. What I ought to do is to get some harmless young fellow to take the part of Jack Norman, while I lie low and do my work."
"Who could I get in our gang? There's Bill Endicott; good fellow, but too much of a talker, specially with a girl. He'd never do. There's Joe Welland, he's close enough—but too thick. He couldn't take a part any more than a bronze statue. They say Stan Larkin and I look alike. He might do. No! He's too hard-headed. He wouldn't do what I wanted. It's too risky anyhow to let one of the gang in on this. The others would have to know. I'd better keep away from them for the present."
Jack's reflections were interrupted by an appeal from alongside: "Say, fella, can you help a fella to a meal?"
He became aware for the first that he shared the bench with another. It was a fat youth of about his own age with an expression at once piteous and absurd. There is bound to be something ludicrous in the spectacle of a fat beggar. Chubby cheeks were designed to wear a good-natured smile. The shame-faced look that accompanied the appeal did not suggest the professional beggar in this case.
Jack had reached the point where he was glad of a diversion. His thoughts had begun to chase themselves in circles. "What's the trouble, 'Bo?" he asked in friendly fashion.
"Down on my luck, that's all. I'm an actor. Got a job to walk on in a big show called 'Ulysses.' Rehearsed three weeks and then they flivved. I had borrowed every cent I could on the job, and now I dassent be seen where my friends are. I'm done! Ain't eaten since yesterday. Say, it's Hell for a fat man to be hungry!"
Jack laughed. Moreover the word "hunger" started something insistent in his own internals. He dropped a further consideration of his problems until that should be satisfied.
"By Gad! That reminds me I haven't had any dinner myself! Come on, let's see what we can find."
"You mean it!"