With this rebuke he had shut himself up in the private office with Mr. Billy Cutts again, and was seen no more up to the usual hour for closing the office, when Frank, without attempting to even say good-night, simply put on his hat and walked out, wholly undetermined as to whether his hasty communication with Miss Edna Callister had been overheard.
As the stock broker and the detective hurried along the southerly side of Exchange place—we mean the side where the street dealers in government bonds spend their entire time during business hours in leaning against the iron railings of the basement offices awaiting customers for their wares—there crept out from a doorway a ragged, shivering newsboy, hugging a great bundle of the evening papers tightly under his arm.
Shooting a hasty glance at the men before him, he bounded ahead over the icy sidewalk, shouting at the top of his voice:
"Fo'rt Commercial, Nooiz or Telegram! Evenin' papers, gents?"
Evidently the "gents" were disinclined for the evening paper, for Callister, rudely pushing the boy aside, crossed William street and paused opposite the great stone building occupied by the Lispenard Bank, one of the wealthiest of the wealthy financial institutions in New York.
For an instant only the pause was made; but during that instant the stock broker, with a hurried glance up and down the street—there was no one but the newsboy in sight, and he was half a block away—unrolled a stiff paper plan which he took from under his coat, and giving one end of it to Cutts to hold, pointed first at the plan and then at the building of the Lispenard Bank again.
"Fo'rt Commercial! Nooiz! Telegram or German! Evenin' paper, gents?"
Again the newsboy stood by their side, looking almost over their shoulder at the plan they held between them, as he thrust his bunch of papers in the broker's face.
"No, you young imp!" exclaimed Callister. "These newsboys are thicker than flies about here. I tell you, Billy, there's no trouble about it—no trouble at all. An entrance can be effected as easy as rolling off a log. And as to money, why, good Lord, it's the clearing house, you know, and there's always money there. Come, let's get down and show these to your father, and see what he thinks of the idea."
He rolled up the plans hastily, and putting them under his overcoat, moved off up William street toward Wall, the detective keeping pace by his side.