"What," he then said to himself, "is the use of me going any further? I can't see in the dark. I've got no matches, and if anything happens to me, there'll be nobody to tell Harry about this place. Better make a get-away now, find Harry, and bring him here to-night. Then if we find anybody there'll be something doing." He had turned and was crawling rather rapidly toward the entrance of the passage. XXVIII Bubble's problem was to locate Harry West. And he wrestled with it, if trying to cover the whole of a scorching hot city on a pair of insufficient legs and a very limited amount of carfare may be called wrestling. His search took him into many odd places where you could not have expected to cross the trail of an honest man. He even made inquiries of a master-plumber, of a Fourth Avenue vender of antiques, of a hairy woman with one eye who ran a news-stand, of a bar-tender, of saloon-keepers and bootblacks. He drifted through a department store, and whispered to a pretty girl who sold "art pictures." She shook her head. He spoke a word to the negro sentinel of a house in the West Forties, and was admitted to quiet, padded rooms, containing everything which is necessary to separate hopeful persons from their money. In one room a number of book-makers were whiling away the hot afternoon with poker for small stakes. In another room, played upon by an electric fan, sat Mr. Lichtenstein, the proprietor. He was bent over a table on which he had assembled fifteen or twenty of the component parts of a very large picture-puzzle. He was small, plump and earnest. He may have been a Jew, but he had bright red hair and a pug nose. His eyes, bright, quick, small, brown, and kind, were very busy hunting among the brightly colored pieces of the puzzle. "'Dafternoon, Mr. Liechtenstein," said Bubbles. "'Dafternoon, Bubbles," said Mr. Lichtenstein, without looking up. "How d'je know it was me?" "I saw you in the looking-glass. What's the news?" "It's for Harry." "And Harry is--where?" "Don't you know where Harry is?" "I do. But you can't get to him." Mr. Lichtenstein lowered his voice. "He's gone West, Bub, on the trail of O'Hagan. The plant the old one is growing hasn't put its head above ground yet, and the roots are in the West. Out in Utah they're teaching all kinds of Polacks to shoot rifles. Why? O'Hagan is travelling from one mine to another as a common laborer. Why? While here in little New York, the old one is sitting for his portrait and getting a perfectly innocent young girl talked about. No use to watch the old one till later." "But," said Bubbles, "suppose some one was to find a secret passage leading from the East River to--to--" "To where?" "He doesn't know where. He wanted to get Harry to go with him to find out." "Where does the passage begin, Bubbles?" "Under Pier 31 A." [Illustration: "'Dafternoon, Mr. Lichtenstein," said Bubbles]