"Sebble Abloo!" roared Mr. Epps.
The man shook his head as one giving up a conundrum.
"Sebble Abloo," repeated Mr. Epps at the top of his voice "Look." He held up his fingers and counted them off. "One, two, sree, four, fi', sizz, sebble. Sebble Abloo!"
"Oh, Seventh Avenue. Why didn't you say so in the first place?"
"I did."
"I'm going that way. I'll show you."
The stranger steered Tidbury through a rabbit warren of streets—the Greenwich Village streets never have made up their minds where they are going—and started him, with a gentle push, up Seventh Avenue.
Presently by some miracle Tidbury stumbled upon Steinbock's, and pushed his way into a jumble of masks, wigs, helmets and assorted junk, till he approached a patriarch in a skullcap, hidden behind a Niagara of white beard.
"'Lo, ole fel'," said Mr. Epps affably. "What are you 'sguised as? Sandy Claws or a cough drop?"
"Did you wish something?" inquired the patriarch coldly.