They burst into this private and mysterious sanctum with cries of joy, then stopped a little beyond the threshold and surveyed the room with a feeling of disappointment. It was furnished little better than their room and aside from an old iron bed, there was a single chair, a trunk, and a cracked mirror which hung over the dilapidated writing table. There were two windows, barred and shuttered like the rest of the house. Skippy noticed that, then walked to the far end of the room and opened a closet door. "A ladder, Nickie!" he exclaimed, joyfully. "I betcha it's a ladder for the attic!" "Yeah, an' what we gonna do up in the attic, hah, kid?" Nickie asked. "Even if there wasn't no bars to them winders up there, what'd we do, hah?" "Did I say I knew what we'd do? Ain't it sump'n that we found sump'n? Gee whiz, it's sump'n that the ladder gets us _somewheres_, even if it's the attic where we can't do anything." Nickie's keen, smiling eyes had already found something of interest on the writing table. "A note to the big cheese, kid. From Frost. It's short and sweet. C'mon, take a look." Skippy picked up the paper and read: "I got a great scheme early this morning, boss, so I'm taking the Greeks to Pittsburgh--get me? I thought no use hanging round here till you got back ... I could have things moving, maybe even over by that time. I won't hog the price on account of what you said but I thought I can kill two birds with one stone. I can have two Greek sons as well as one, can't I? Now, I'm going so I'll see you when I get back...." It was unsigned. Nickie looked disappointed. "Still we don't know what their racket is, hah? There's a price an' I wonder what for? S'help me, kid, I'm stumped." "Me too," Skippy admitted, opening the table drawer curiously and peering inside. He drew out a small memorandum book and opened it. Suddenly he whistled. "If you wanna know what the price's for, this'll tell us, Nickie. Gee whiz, here's prices _an' how_! He's got a price for us." "You're crazy!" Nickie said. "A price for us?" He soon saw with his own eyes that Devlin had listed boys, prices, dates and places over a period of several months. Also, it was quite evident that there had been little variation in the means by which they came into the man's dubious protection. Against Timmy Brogan's name was listed a price of $2,500. At the top of a page, underlined in red, was the name of Tucker, who seemed to have been a $3,000 loss to Devlin. Turning the next page, which bore a date two days old, the boys looked at their own names. Nickie was rated at $3,000 and Skippy at $2,500. Shorty and Biff were question-marked at $1,000, and in parentheses the probable price of $500 each was printed. "At three grand I'm the most expensive guy in the bunch," Nickie laughed nervously. "How you make it out?"