“That’s the trouble. We might ask a clerk to send for one, or—or find the proprietor—”
But the man in the brown overcoat settled the matter then and there by leaving his place at the counter and mingling with the outgoing throng. More by luck than anything else, Arnold saw and tugged Toby’s coat sleeve. “Come on!” he said quickly. “He’s going!”
The boys hurried toward the door, or tried to hurry, but their quarry was lost to sight for a moment and when they reached the sidewalk nothing was to be seen of him.
“Which way?” demanded Arnold.
Toby, craning his head, dodging about, pushed and scowled at, was at a loss, and the adventure would have ended there and then had not Arnold’s gaze caught a brief flash of light brown between the jostling throng. “I think I see him,” he cried. “Come on, Toby!” He pushed his way to the edge of the broad sidewalk, Toby following at his heels, just in time to see the man disappear behind a car at the far side of the street. Without pause they dashed after. That they escaped injury in the seething traffic was only by the veriest good fortune. An automobile almost ran them down half-way across, a trolley car ground its brakes in seeming chagrin as they leaped out of its path, and, after that, they were forced to remain marooned between track and curbing for many moments before a tiny break in the line of vehicles allowed them to squeeze through.
As might have been expected, by the time they found themselves on the sidewalk, very much out of breath, the brown overcoat was once more gone from view, and although they gazed up and down the street no glimpse of it rewarded them. Toby’s countenance took on an expression of despair that was almost ludicrous and Arnold fretted and fumed.
“If we hadn’t been held up out there we’d have caught him,” he declared as they stood undecidedly on the edge of the sidewalk. “Now he’s gone for good, I guess.”
Toby nodded dolorous assent. “I wish I’d just gone up and grabbed hold of him when I had the chance,” he said. “Which way was he going, do you think?”
“He wasn’t going any way. He was headed straight across the street.”