“What the hell! A kid!”
Nora called timidly, “Hello.”
The men held up lanterns. There were three of them. “What in God’s name you doing here?”
Nora perceived in the man’s voice more astonishment than wrath. The men behind also seemed amazed. Astonishment in adults offered, not peril, but opportunity.
“I’m lost,” Nora said. “I was running away from—people—and I saw a ladder in a hole. I went down—and slid—and I guess I hit kind of hard and when I came to my senses I was wandering in this place. Where is it?”
“Issa bout Washanan an’ da riva,” a man with a mustache said. “Da poor leetle keed.”
“They were boys I was running away from,” Nora went on hurriedly. “Big boys. Men, almost. They asked me to do—terrible things.” A woman in distress, Nora felt, one who was trying to get sympathy, should be in distress for a more suitable reason than pursuit by Mrs.
Bailey.
“Be goddam!” said the Italian.
The man who’d spoken first said, “What’s the name, sister?”