Stargarde, lifting up her eyes and seeing that she was alone, hurried down the steps to the next floor, to a room belonging to a boys’ club.
“Password,” muttered a sepulchral voice when she tapped lightly on the door panels.
“Good boys,” she returned with a laugh. It was not the password. “Death to the traitor,” was the signal for the night; but they knew her voice, and a boy opened the door and slipped out.
“How do you do, Mike?” she said cheerfully; “can’t you let me in?” He hesitated and she went on, “I want to see how your club room looks. Don’t you want a new stove, and some chairs and pictures? I know where you could get some, if you do.”
The boy’s pale face brightened. “Hold on,” he ejaculated; “I’ll tell ’em.”
He insinuated himself back into the room through the very narrowest possible space; there was a sound of shuffling of furniture, and quickly moving feet, then he told her she might enter. The atmosphere of the room was thick with smoke; they could not clear that away, though a window had been hastily opened, and the pure, cold air streamed in through the dusky atmosphere.
Boys’ heads shone out of the cloud—not big boys, but half-grown ones, boys who drove small coal carts about the city—all noticeable by their universal blackness of hair and whiteness of faces recently washed. There was a good fire in the stove; poor people will go hungry before they will go cold, she knew that. Of books, games, anything to amuse the lads, she saw nothing. A few empty boxes for seats were set about the stove. On one of them a forgotten knave of clubs lay on his back ruefully staring in the direction his fellows had gone, marked by a suspicious bulge in the pocket of one of the oldest lads present.
“Good-evening, Harry, Jim, Joe, Will,” said Stargarde, nodding gayly, and mentioning all of the boys in the room by name. “What about the act respecting the use of tobacco by minors?” and she began to quote in a lugubrious tone of voice, “‘Any person who either directly or indirectly sells or gives or furnishes to a minor under eighteen years of age, cigarettes, cigars, or tobacco in any form, shall in summary conviction thereof be subject to a penalty of not less than ten dollars.’” She broke off there, for the boys were all smiling at her.
“Aren’t you glad I’m not a policeman?” she said. “Come now, boys, let us make a bargain. Pipes in the fire, and I’ll furnish the room. I was just speaking to Mike about it.”
The president, a lad rather more respectably dressed than the others, stepped forward. “Will you give us your terms in writing?” he said.