"I'd like to hear him tell about it," said Ashton-Kirk.
"He's taking a sleep in the back room," said the clerk, with a wink. "I'll try and get him out."
He disappeared and in a few moments returned, followed by a short, ruddy-faced old man with a short-clipped white moustache.
"Oh, the Jap and the taxi," said he, when the matter was explained to him. "Yes, that was a queer kind of a little thing." He looked at the secret agent in a knowing sort of way, and then proceeded: "You can't keep track of everybody, no matter how hard you try. I've been noticing that Jap, because he was a Jap, ever since he came into this neighborhood, but I never give him credit for this."
"Have a cigar?" suggested Ashton-Kirk.
The private watchman bit the end off the cigar and lit it with much care.
"I smoke a pipe most of the time," said he, "but I like a cigar once in a while." He puffed it into a glow, and then went on: "That taxi to-night turns around and starts down the street and around the corner toward Fordham Road. And just as it turns the corner I notices a chicken standing there—regular broiler with a veil on and a little bag in her mit. She starts up Berkley toward where I'm standing, but before she gets half-way I heard the buzzing of the taxi once more; around it came again into Berkley and shot up to the curb abreast of the girl.
"She stopped like a flash, the Jap threw open the door, and she gave a little yelp as though she was just about as glad as she'd ever been in her life. Then she jumped into the taxi, the door shut and around the corner it whirled and was gone. There's no use talking," said the speaker and he shook his head in a way that convulsed the drug clerk, "you can't never tell anything about human nature."
Ashton-Kirk buttoned up his coat.