He saw, too, that he could not directly approach the couple without incurring suspicion, but that he might hasten around the square and approach them through the other street, possibly getting a line on their talk by passing near them. “It’s worth trying,” he said to himself. “The woman, at least, cannot give me the slip.” Patsy did not defer this move. Sheltered by the tree then hiding him, he retraced his steps and darted through a near street, presently rounding the square and sauntering toward the couple from the other direction. While he still was some fifty yards away, however, Kate Crandall abruptly left Magill and hastened to the dwelling at which she had repeatedly glanced. Patsy rightly inferred that it was where she boarded. He passed her just as she was entering the gate, noting that she looked pale and disturbed, and had an ugly gleam in her black eyes. Patsy also saw that Magill was watching her from around the corner and knowing the utterly depraved and desperate character of the crook, he instantly adopted a ruse that he thought might prove profitable and enable him to get a line on the game Magill was playing. Though he heard Kate enter the house and close the door, Patsy repeatedly glanced back over his shoulder, as if hard hit with her flashy style and personal beauty. Upon turning the corner and coming face to face with Magill, however, Patsy pretended to see him for the first time, and to realize that his own covert admiration of the woman had been detected. He grinned, remarking rudely, as if by way of explanation: “Don’t often see one like her. Lucky for me she went under cover, or I’d have got a crook in my neck looking backward.” Magill looked at him sharply. It was then that Patsy’s hangdog disguise proved advantageous. Magill saw, that he was not going to stop, or so it appeared, and he said quickly: “Wait a bit!” “Wait for what?” questioned Patsy, pausing. Magill eyed him searchingly for several seconds “You’d wait for the skirt, wouldn’t you?” he asked, with unmistakable significance. Patsy grinned again expressively. “Rather!” said he. “I’d wait for her till I hadn’t a leg to stand on.” “You might do worse, pal,” said Magill suggestively. “You mean I couldn’t do better,” returned Patsy. “But I’m not in the class with swell skirts like her.” “She’s not so swell.” “Isn’t she?” Patsy looked surprised and his eyes took on a light well in keeping with his disguised countenance. He now shrewdly surmised that Magill had a use for him, that he had designs that he could not carry out alone, and that he needed a confederate. This suited Patsy to the letter. He added incredulously, nevertheless, lest his inference and readiness might be suspected: “That don’t go down. There’s nothing in it--nothing for me.” “Think not?” “That’s what.” “I can put you in a way to become friendly with her,” said Magill, with squinting scrutiny. “You can?” Patsy demanded.