“Yes. All right!” responded Chick.
The chauffeur was enveloped in a great, hairy coat, and a cap of the same kind of fur was pulled well down over his face. The weather was not cold in the daytime, for it was early fall, but at night one can get pretty chilly driving a cab for hours at a stretch, and no doubt the heavy coat was comfortable between five and six in the morning.
“Take me down to Thirty-fourth Street and Madison,” directed Chick. “Then I’ll show you the house I want.”
It was one of Nick Carter’s precautions—which he also advised his assistants to observe—not to mention his address to strangers. It was better, he held, to get near the house, and then point it out to anybody to whom it was necessary to show it.
“All right,” grunted the chauffeur. “Can you open the door yourself? You don’t want me to get down, do you?”
“Of course not. I’m able to get into a cab without help,” replied Chick, with a smile.
“It opens a little hard,” said the cabman.
The taxi was in front of the vacant lot, with the high board fence around it, to which reference has been made in a former chapter. It was a lonesome spot, especially at that hour in the day.
Chick found that the door of the taxicab did indeed open hard. He could not turn the handle at first, and when he did accomplish this, it was with considerable difficulty that he got the door to open.
“Sticks like thunder!” he ejaculated, as he tugged at the handle. “What the deuce do you have your door so——”