"Go home and make yourself ready for a dive into the infernal regions," he said, merrily. "I am going to take you to a place where the devil spends his vacation, and show you a set of women as different from those you have lately met as chalk is from indigo. Be here at nine o'clock this evening, prepared for the descent."
A vision of subterranean passages crossed the mind of the listener, and he thought of tall boots and a tarpaulin.
"How shall I dress—roughly, I suppose?" he inquired.
"Certainly not. Put on your swallow tail, and white tie. Vice in these days wears its best garments. You cannot tell a gambler from a clergyman by his attire. Dress exactly as if you were going to the swellest party on Fifth Avenue. The only addition to your toilet will be a revolver, if you happen to have one handy. If you do not, I have several and will lend you one."
If he expected to startle the young man he was in error. Roseleaf merely nodded and said he would take one of the weapons owned by Mr. Weil.
"We shall not use them—there are a thousand chances to one," said Archie. "New York is like Montana. You remember what the resident said to the tenderfoot, 'You may be a long time without wantin' a we'p'n in these parts, but when you do you'll want it d—d sudden.'"
When Roseleaf returned, the hands of his watch indicated the time at which he had been asked to make his appearance, but Mr. Weil did not take him immediately to the point of destination. Instead he walked over to a variety theatre that was then in operation on Twenty-third street, and after spending a short time in the auditorium guided the young man into the "wineroom." Here the ladies of the ballet were in the habit of going when off the stage, for the sake of entertaining the patrons with their light and frivolous conversation, and inducing them if possible, to invest in champagne at five dollars the bottle.
Archie was, it appeared, not unknown to the throng that filled this place, for his name was spoken by several of both sexes as soon as he entered. He nodded coolly to those who addressed him, and took a seat at a table with his companion. With a shake of his head he declined the offers of two or three fairies of the ballet to share the table, and ordered a bottle of Mumm with the evident intention of drinking it alone with his friend.
Roseleaf slowly sipped the sparkling beverage. He was cautioned in a whisper to drink but one glass, as it was necessary that he should keep a perfectly clear head. Weil remarked in an undertone that he had only ordered the wine as an excuse for remaining a few minutes.
"I call this 'the slaughter house,'" he added, in a voice still lower. "Girls are brought here to be murdered. Not to have their throats cut," he explained, "but to be killed just as surely, if more slowly. I have seen them come here for the first time, with good health shining out of their rosy cheeks, delighted at the unwonted excitement and the amount of attention the frequenters of the place bestowed. I have watched them growing steadily paler, having recourse to rouge, the eyes getting dimmer, the voice growing harsher, the temper becoming more variable. And then—other fresh faces came in their stead. There are killed, on an average, twenty girls a year here, I should say; killed to satisfy the appetites of men, as beeves are killed in Chicago, but not so mercifully."