E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 28505-h.htm or 28505-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/8/5/0/28505/28505-h/28505-h.htm) or (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/8/5/0/28505/28505-h.zip) THE THIRD DEGREE A Narrative of Metropolitan Life by CHARLES KLEIN and ARTHUR HORNBLOW Authors of the novel _The Lion and the Mouse_ Illustrations by Clarence Rowe Grosset & Dunlap Publishers :: New York Copyright, 1909, by G. W. Dillingham Company _The Third Degree._ [Illustration: "I ACCUSE YOU OF PREJUDICING THE COMMUNITY AGAINST THE PRISONER BEFORE HE COMES TO TRIAL."] CONTENTS I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI XII XIII XIV XV XVI XVII XVIII XIX List of Illustrations "I ACCUSE YOU OF PREJUDICING THE COMMUNITY AGAINST THE PRISONER BEFORE HE COMES TO TRIAL." "YOU DID IT, AND YOU KNOW YOU DID IT." "I CAN DO NOTHING FOR YOU," SAID THE JUDGE. "WHEN THIS MYSTERIOUS WITNESS DOES COME I SHALL PLACE HER UNDER ARREST." The Third Degree CHAPTER I. "I'm N. G.--that's a cinch! The sooner I chuck it the better!" Caught in the swirl of the busy city's midday rush, engulfed in Broadway's swift moving flood of hustling humanity, jostled unceremoniously by the careless, indifferent crowds, discouraged from stemming further the tide of pushing, elbowing men and women who hurried up and down the great thoroughfare, Howard Jeffries, tired and hungry and thoroughly disgusted with himself, stood still at the corner of Fulton street, cursing the luck which had brought him to his present plight. It was the noon hour, the important time of day when nature loudly claims her due, when business affairs, no matter how pressing, must be temporarily interrupted so that the human machine may lay in a fresh store of nervous energy. From under the portals of precipitous office buildings, mammoth hives of human industry, which to right and left soared dizzily from street to sky, swarmed thousands of employees of both sexes--clerks, stenographers, shop-girls, messenger boys, all moved by a common impulse to satisfy without further delay the animal cravings of their physical natures. They strode along with quick, nervous step, each chatting and laughing with his fellow, interested for the nonce in the day's work, making plans for well-earned recreation when five o'clock should come and the up-town stampede for Harlem and home begin.