Our offices were situated in a block the other side of which consisted of tenement-houses. Investigation showed that it would be possible to get over the roofs, walk nearly the length of the block and gain access to one of the more distant tenements through a skylight. For the sum of fifty dollars we found an Italian fruit- dealer who was willing to hire himself, his rickety wagon, and his spavined horse for our enterprise; and he agreed to carry Hawkins concealed under piles of produce to a point on Long Island, where we could take a ferry across to one of the Connecticut towns. The following night we arranged that a hack should be drawn up early in the evening in front of the entrance to the office, and bags and boxes were brought out and piled upon the seat beside the driver. We then half dragged, half lifted Hawkins up the stairs and on the roof by means of a shaky ladder and conducted him across the leads to the scuttle of the tenement-house. At this juncture, by prearrangement, three of our clerks, one of whom somewhat resembled Hawkins in size and who was arrayed in the latter's coat and hat, rushed out of the office and climbed into the hack, which at once set off at a furious gallop up Centre Street. Coincidentally Gottlieb and I escorted our still maudlin prisoner down the narrow stairs at the other end of the block and cajoled him into getting into a sack, which the Italian placed in the bottom of the cart and covered with greens. I now put on a disguise, consisting of a laborer's overalls and tattered cap, while Gottlieb wheeled out a safety bicycle which had been carefully concealed in the basement. I had ten thousand dollars in the pocket of my ragged trousers and a forty-four-calibre revolver at my hip. Gottlieb drew me back into the shadow and whispered harshly in my ear. "Quib," said he, "this fellow must never come back!--do you understand? Once the district attorney gets hold of him, it's all up with us! It's Sing Sing for each of us--ten years of it! For God's sake, hire somebody to put him out of the way!--quietly. Many a man would take him off our hands for a thousand or so." I shuddered at the cold-blooded suggestion, yet I did not utter one word of refusal, and must have led Gottlieb to believe that I was of a mind with him, for he slapped me on the shoulder and bade me good luck. Good luck! Was ever a man of decent birth and education forced upon such an errand? The convoying of a drunken criminal to--where? I knew not--somewhere whence he could not return.