“‘A blind tiger’?” he gasped. “A blind tiger?” What caused his emotion was not anxiety for the safety of his friends; the confident importance with which they had entered the place convinced him that if there actually was a blind tiger within, they were perfectly aware of the circumstance and knew what they were doing when they entered the animal’s presence. His feeling about them was indefinite and hazy; yet it was certainly a feeling incredulous but awed, such as any one might have about people well known to him, who suddenly appear to be possessed of supernatural powers. “Honest, d’you b’lieve there’s a blind tiger in there?” he asked of the man who had confirmed the strange information. “Sure!” “Honest, is one in there? Do you _honest_——” But no one paid him any further attention. By this time a dozen or more people had gathered; others were arriving; and as the tumult behind the formerly green door increased, hurried discussion became general on the sidewalk. Several men said that somebody ought to go in and see what the matter was; others said that they themselves would be willing to go in, but they didn’t like to do it without a warrant; and two or three declared that nobody ought to go in just at that time. One of these was emphatic, especially upon the duty men owe to themselves. “A man owes _something_ to himself,” he said. “A man owes it to himself not to git no forty-four in his gizzard by takin’ and pushin’ into a place where somebody’s _usin’_ a forty-four. A man owes it to himself to keep out o’ trouble unless he’s got some call to take and go bullin’ into it; _that’s_ what he owes to himself!” Another seemed to be depressed by the scandal involved. He was an unshaven person of a general appearance naïvely villainous, and, without a hat or coat, he had hurried across the street from an establishment not essentially unlike that under discussion—precisely like it, in fact, in declaring itself (though without the accent) to be a place where coffee in the French manner might be expected. “What worries _me_ is,” he said gloomily, and he repeated this over and over, “what worries _me_ is, it gives the neighbourhood kind of a poor name. What worries _me_, it’s gittin’ the neighbourhood all talked about and everything, the way you wouldn’t want it to, yourself.” Laurence took a fancy to this man, whose dejection had a quality of pathos that seemed to imply a sympathetic nature. “_Is_ there one—honestly?” Laurence asked him. “Cross your _heart_ there is one?” The gloomy man continued to address his lament to the one or two acquaintances who were listening to him. “It’s just like this—what worries _me_ is——” But Laurence tugged at his soiled shirt-sleeve. “Is there _honest_ one in there?” “Is there one _what_ in there?” the man asked with unexpected gruffness. “A blind tiger!” The gloomy man instantly became of a terrifying aspect. He roared: “Git away f’m here!”