McCall offered to share his room, but Robert had already reserved one at a hotel by wire. They reached the hotel by taxi, after a short ride between tall, soot-stained buildings, on streets thick and noisy with traffic. At almost every corner the taxi was stopped by the cross flow of hurrying men and women and vehicles. Then the shrill blast of the traffic patrolman’s whistle and they poured forward again with the current. There were glimpses of a huge steel skeleton reaching to the sky and sounds of the riveters. At the end of what appeared to be an alley loomed a massive gray building—the post office. Elevated trains thundered overhead. Surface cars rattled and clanged on the streets. The sidewalks swarmed with hurrying people. It was a race—a contest to get somewhere first. You had to shout to be heard and then after shouting a few times you forgot what you had started to say. The taxi kept stopping suddenly and as suddenly shooting ahead.
“Well, what do you think of Chicago?” asked McCall, when they were in their room and the bell boy had been dismissed with a tip.
“Rotten!” said Hamilton. “I’ve got a cinder in my eye.”
“It’s a sign of progress,” said McCall. “Cinders. Smoke. Tall chimneys. Railroads. Skyscrapers. Noise. Confusion. A few murders for variety and lots of vice. I’ll show you the stockyards. Then you will think Clark street is like a bed of violets. What’s this thing? ‘Do You Know That?’—or I’ll take you to our black and tan belt some night.”
Robert realized that, in throwing his coat on the bed, one of the Trick Track Tribe cards had fallen out.
“Oh, never mind. It’s not important.”
But McCall had already picked it up and was reading it.
“Oh, here’s a lulu!” he exclaimed. “Here’s richness. Here’s charity. That’s one of the Trick Track Tribe’s little cardlets, if I mistake not. Where’d you get it? Let me have it, I’m working on an expose of the Tribe. It’s a nice mess. Say, you ought to be able to help me. The headquarters is in Corinth.”
Robert turned red and pretended to search for something in his coat pocket.
“Why—er—a—you know—” Robert coughed. “Well, you know the Tribe is a sort of secret organization.”