The policeman on the corner was endeavoring to direct a very small boy with a very large bundle. "Up one block and turn east," he said, impressively. "I've told you that now three times."
I had a flash of inspiration. "Copper it," I cried.
"Right," said Indiman, soberly. We walked down one block to Twenty-eighth Street and then turned westward.
New York is a big city, and therefore entitled to present an occasional anomaly to the observant eye. And this particular section of Twenty-eighth Street is one of these departures from the normal, a block or two of respectable, even handsome houses set as an oasis in a dull and sordid neighborhood. How and why this should be does not matter; it is to be presumed that the people who live there are satisfied, and it is nobody else's business.
We walked on slowly, then, half-way down the block, Indiman stopped me. "What did I tell you?" he whispered.
The house was of the English basement type, and occupied two of the ordinary city lots; nothing particularly remarkable about that, and I said as much.
"But look again," insisted Indiman. I did so and saw a man standing at the door, evidently desirous of entering. Twice, while we stood watching him, he rang without result, and the delay annoyed him. He shook the door-knob impatiently, and then fell to researching his pockets, an elaborate operation that consumed several minutes.
"Lost his latch-key," commented Indiman. He walked up the steps of the entrance porch. "You might try mine," he said, politely, and held out the key picked up the night before at Fifth Avenue and Twenty-seventh Street.
"Huh!" grunted the man, suspiciously, but he took the little piece of metal and inserted it into the slot of the lock. The door swung open. Amazing, but what followed was even more incredible. The man stepped into the hall, but continued to hold the door wide open.
"You're coming in, I suppose," he said, surlily.