Outside the hut there was a hoarse, sleepy croak, then another, and
another, and another. The dangers of light being past, the frogs were
waking to their evening chant. Teddy had always loved this dreamy,
monotonous lullaby, reminiscent of spring twilights and approaching
holidays. He was glad now that it would be the last sound to greet his
ears on earth. Since he had to go, it would croon to him softly, cradle
him gently, letting the night of the soul come down on him consolingly.
He was not frightened; he was only tired—oddly tired, considering where
he was. It would be easier to fall asleep than do anything else,
listening to the co-ax, co-ax, co-ax, with which the darkness round was
filled.
————
And right at that minute, Flynn, with low chuckles of laughter, was
telling Mrs. Flynn of the extraordinary adventure of the afternoon.
"We didn’t have nothin’ on the young guy at all till we seen him look
over at us scared-like, and he tuck to his heels."
It was a cozy scene—Flynn, in his shirt sleeves and slippers, smoking
his pipe in the dining-room of a Harlem apartment, while his wife, a
plump, pretty woman, was putting away the spoons and forks in the drawer
of the yellow-oak sideboard. The noisy Flynn children being packed off
to bed, the father could unbend and become confidential.
"It’s about three weeks now since Jackman put me wise to money leakin’
from Collingham & Law’s, and we couldn’t tell where the hole was. First
we’d size up one fella, and then another; but we’d say it couldn’t be
him or him. We looked over this young Follett with the rest, but only
with the rest, and found but wan thing ag’in’ him."
"Didn’t he lose his father a short while back?"
"Yes; and that was what made us think of him. Old Follett was fired from
the bank eight or nine months ago, and yet the family had gone on livin’
very much as they always done."
"That’d be to their credit, wouldn’t it?" Mrs. Flynn suggested, kindly.
"It’d be to some one’s credit; and the thing we wanted to know was if it
was to Collingham & Law’s. But we hadn’t a thing on him. We found out
he’d paid for the old man’s funeral, and the grave, and all that; but
whether old Follett had left a little wad or whether the young guy’d
found it lyin’ around loose, we couldn’t make out at all. And then this
afternoon, as Jackman and me was talkin’ it over on the other side o’
Broad Street, who should come out but me little lord! Well, wan look
give the whole show away. The third degree couldn’t ha’ been neater. The
very eyes of him when he seen us on the other side o’ the street says,
’My God! they’ve got me!’ So off he goes—and off we goes—up Broad
Street—into Wall Street—across to Nassau Street—up Nassau Street—round
the corner into John Street—up to Broadway—over Broadway—and then we
lost him. But we’ve done the trick. To-morrow, when he comes to the
bank, we’ll have him on the grill. Sooner or later he’d ha’ been on the
grill, anyhow."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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