The gang stripped both pipes of their green mantle, and tore out the bedding and soap-box furniture of the dormitory tube. Full of wonder, Bertino looked on. He did not know that the letters “D. P. W.” painted boldly on the truck stood for Department of Public Works, and that New York was merely gathering up its half-forgotten property. In his wrath at this desecration of the Tomato domicile he would have sprung from his concealment and protested, but the thought that he was a murderer held him back. He lurked at such close range now that he recognised two of the men as residents of Mulberry. One, the foreman of the gang, he knew for a distinguished political captain of a Sicilian election district, and a prominent figure in the social life of that quarter. So Bertino dared not show himself even when they dragged forth the box containing the Last Lady. “Beautiful!” said the foreman. “Beautiful!” was the united echo. “Listen, Andrea,” the foreman went on, addressing the other man whom Bertino knew, “I find this thing on the city’s property, and I shall keep it. To Mulberry you will carry it, my friend, for I have a famous idea for the Feast of Springtide.” With block and tackle and much hauling of ropes and singing of hee-hoo! they loaded the pipe on the truck. Then the foreman and Andrea lifted on the bust, and before Bertino’s eyes the Last Lady was abducted. He did not rise from his covert until the truck, its big horses straining at the traces and the wheels glucking under their heavy burden, had gone a quarter of a mile. Then he started after it, keeping a safe distance between himself and the men who might recognise him at closer range. Only a vague sense had he at first of the purpose that impelled him onward; he could not bear to see his friend’s precious work of months, upon which he had built his very life hope, thus carried away without doing something, and that something, whatever it pleased Fate to provide, could not be done unless he kept the bust in sight. Later the clearer design came to him of following the Last Lady to her destination, and letting the banker know, so that he might go forward and reclaim her from the abductors.