“I’ll make it or bust!” he declared.
CHAPTER VIII.
IN THE OLD HOUSE.
Ten minutes’ skillful work in front of the mirror in his bedroom was enough for Chick in which to transform himself into the character he desired to assume.
He put on a shabby sack coat, a pair of overalls, with holes in them here and there, showing old trousers underneath, a cap that came far over his eyes. Also, he wore shoes which were patched, but which had no holes in them, and were more comfortable than they looked. Chick was always particular to wear shoes in which he could move easily.
He did not put anything on his face to change its appearance. It was not necessary. The cap covered so much of his visage that it would not be easy for anybody to recognize him at a casual glance. Around his neck a dark-colored silk handkerchief did away with the need for a collar and necktie.
He took the subway to Jersey City. Then he walked swiftly toward his destination, on the outskirts of the city.
Salisbury Street is one of the darkest and most unfrequented thoroughfares within sound of the trains on the Erie. There are boarding houses and rooming houses in Salisbury Street, as on most of the streets and avenues in that neighborhood. Tall, gloomy, narrow-fronted houses abound—houses built long before the present generation, when ornamentation was not so generally demanded in residential architecture.
Each of these edifices has a deep basement, far underground, a vaultlike yard, reached by iron steps, and the whole surrounded by a rusty iron fence, giving the place a general resemblance to a wild beast’s den.
Besides boarding and rooming, there are other businesses carried on in Salisbury Street. A Chinese laundry occupies one basement, and a cobbler another. Also, there are tinsmiths, plumbers, a delicatessen store of uninviting aspect, and other commercial callings of a more or less poverty-stricken look.