“Then good-day to you.” He disappeared. She turned and went away, walking fast. Her name was Norfleet and she was a widow and alone in the world. Except for her son, who worked at Kattersmith Brothers' brickyards as a helper for twelve dollars and a half a week, she had no kith or kin. She lived mainly by her needle, being a seamstress of sorts. King Highpockets' establishment was the nearest approach to a gilded gambling hell--to quote a phrase current--that we had. But certainly it was not gilded, although possibly by some it might have been likened to a hell. Under the friendly cover of darkness you ascended a steep flight of creaky wooden steps and when you had reached the first landing you knocked at a locked wooden door. The lock slid back and the door opened a cautious inch or two and a little grinning negro, whose name was Babe Givens, peeped out at you through the opening. If you were the right person, or if you looked as though you might be the right person, Babe Givens opened the door wider and made way for you to enter. Entering then, you found yourself in a big room furnished most simply with two tables and some chairs and several spittoons upon the floor, and a portable rack for poker checks and a dumbwaiter in a corner--and that was all. There was no safe, the proprietor deeming it the part of safety to carry his cash capital on his person. There was no white-uniformed attendant to bring you wine, should you thirst, and turkey sandwiches, if you hungered while at play. I have read that such as these are provided in all properly conducted gambling hells in the great city, but King Highpockets ran a sure-thing shop, not a restaurant. Drinks, when desired, were paid for in advance, and came from the bar below on the shelf of the creaking dumbwaiter, after Babe Givens had called the order down a tin speaking tube. There were no rugs upon the floor, no pictures against the walls. Except for the decks of cards, opened fresh at each sitting, there was nothing new or bright about the place. The King might move his entire outfit in one two-horse wagon and put no great strain upon the team. He might lose it altogether and be out of pocket not more than seventy-five dollars. In him the utilitarian triumphed above the purely artistic; himself, he was not pretty to look upon. Of the two tables, one ordinarily was for poker and the other was for craps. The King banked both games, and sometimes took a hand in the poker game if conditions seemed propitious. Whether he played though or whether he didn't, he stood by always to lift a white chip out of each jackpot for a greedy and omnivorous kitty, whose mouth showed as a brassbound slot in the middle of the circular cover of dirty green baize. Trust him to minister to his kitty every pop. She was his pet and he loved her, and he never forgot her and her needs.