"Of course, fool," she answered, sharply. "Do you think that I have been standing here for the last half-hour in cold and wet for my own pleasure?" "But if he sent it?" I remonstrated, feebly, "perhaps he may not like me to interfere--to----" "Like me to?" she retorted, sharply, mocking my tone. "Who said he would? Cannot you understand that it is I who do not like to? That I am not going into that place at this time of night, and half in the house drunken brutes? It is bad enough to be here, loitering up and down as if I were what I am not--and free to be spoken to by every impudent blood that passes! Go, man, and do it, and I will wait so long. What do you fear?" "The rope," said I, "to be plain with you." And I looked with abhorrence at the scrap of paper she had given me. "I have taken too many of these," I said. "Well, you will take one more!" she answered, doggedly. "Or you are no man. See, there is the door. Ask for the Apollo Room, give it to him, and the thing is done!" And with that she set both hands to me and pushed me the way she would have me move--I mean towards the tavern. "Go!" she said. "Go!" Hate the thing as I might, and did, I could not resist persuasions addressed to me in such a tone; nor fail to be moved by the girl's shrinking from the task, which had to be done, it seemed, by one of us. After all, it was no more than I had done several times before; and my reluctance having its origin in the resolution, to which I had just come, to break off from the gang, yielded to the reflection that the design lay as yet in my own breast, and might be carried out as well to-morrow as to-day. In a word, I complied out of pity, went to the tavern, and walked boldly in.