It Pays to Smile

by Nina Wilcox Putnam

"Well, give us a little advance notice when you are going to pull something out of the usual," he replied cryptically, and turned his attention back to the car—for which I felt profoundly grateful—and to scanning the corner lamps for the name of the avenue for which we were seeking.

Fortunately the streets were literally deserted and so we escaped notice. If any one had followed us from the ferry he would have been visible many blocks away. The only living creature we passed in fifty squares was a maraudering cat which shot across our path like a black arrow.

"Good luck!" commented Peaches.

But the remark failed to reassure me, for by now we had discovered and turned into our avenue, and its aspect was most decidedly not residential. In point of fact it could hardly be said to contain houses, much less anything worthy of being dignified by the name of residence. It was quite unlike any part of Boston with which I was acquainted, and I did not fancy its atmosphere, which was redolent of gas, to say the least. Moreover, it was not at all a suitable place for a duke to live, even when in retirement from the police. I should have felt something on upper Fifth Avenue much more fitting—say, in a secret chamber in the neighborhood of the Plaza. Or in the half-ruinous mansion of some aristocrat out at, let us say at Hempstead, which I understand contains many fine old estates.

The quarter through which we were proceeding was impossible—simply impossible! I trust that there is very little of the snob in me, at least of that species of snob which cannot distinguish between genteel poverty and common poverty. Mere shabbiness is no cause for losing caste, as I myself know full well. And so I would have said nothing to a shabby neighborhood. But this was not even, properly speaking, a neighborhood, being as it was, chiefly composed of gas tanks which towered heavenward in shadowy menace, of warehouses with blank faces, and unpleasant odors.

Between these at rare intervals were sandwiched little groups of houses—part of what might originally have been rather a fine terrace. Three-story brick affairs, they were, that once might have looked out upon the river before their giant neighbors had risen to obstruct the view. They stood in little groups of three or four, huddled together and squeezed on either hand by elbowing dirty lofts or other commercial tramps of buildings. Most of them appeared to be used for the storing of hides, to judge from the refuse in the street before them; some had been ruined by fire without being demolished, others gaped with broken windows behind their "For Sale" signs—drearily awaiting purchasers who never came.

But here and there among them were a few which gave indication that human beings still used them as habitations—a dirty window curtain, a set of battered shades, a stoop less cluttered than those of the neighbors. And occasionally a dingy notice that there were furnished rooms to be had. But nowhere any light. It was like a city of the dead,—or like a town long abandoned. It was difficult indeed to realize that on the morrow—nay, later on in this very morning—the place would be a busy waterfront.

It was before one of these poor houses that Richard, the chauffeur, at length came to a halt; and exceptionally moldy and uninviting specimen it was, with the storage terminal of some exporting company on the one hand of it and a string of unsavory-looking lodgings upon the other. The number for which we were looking was discernible, though scarcely legible above its closed storm doors—Number 1162. There could be no mistake. It was our destination. But it certainly did not look inviting, from cellar to attic the shutters, though sagging precariously on their hinges, were closed, and the areaway was obstructed by empty crates, evidently refuse from its business neighbor.

"It doesn't look as if a soul were home," I observed. "How very disappointing!"

"Houses that refugees are hiding in don't exactly open up like hotels," observed Dicky dryly. "The question now is, how do we get invited in without bringing a lot of attention on ourselves?"