Durkin had never seen chloral hydrate take effect, and Eddie Crawford realized that his friend was foolishly preparing to kill time. “Here, boss, don’t you go to sleep in here,” called out Eddie, for already the Central Office man was showing signs of bodily distress. Even the gaunt and threadbare-looking curb-broker was gazing with wondering eyes at the two lolling figures. Then, having satisfied both his hunger and his curiosity, the frugal luncher hurried away. The hand of steel dropped from Durkin’s coat-sleeve. “I’m—I’m queer!” murmured O’Reilly, brokenly, as he sagged back in his chair. Durkin was watching the whitening faces, the quivering eyelids, the slowly stiffening limbs. “My God, Eddie, you haven’t killed them?” he cried, as he turned to hand over his fee. Eddie laughed unconcernedly. “They’ll be dead enough, till we get out of this, anyway!” he said, already taking off his apron and drawing down a window-curtain in front of the table in the corner. “What’s that for?” demanded Durkin, nervously, as the bartender dodged round to the telephone booth. “Why, I’ve got to ’phone over t’ the boss t’ get back here and ’tend t’ his business. You don’t suppose _I_ can afford t’ stay in this town now, with a sucker like O’Reilly after me!” “But what can they do?” demanded Durkin, as he looked down at the collapsed figures. “Even when they come back?” “Oh, they daren’t do much bleating, and go and peach right out, seeing they were in after graft and we could show ’em up for neglect o’ duty, all right, all right! But they’d just hound me, on the side, and keep after me, and make life kind o’ miserable. Besides that, I always wanted to see St. Louis, anyway!” The swing doors opened as he spoke, and Custom House Charley himself hurried in. “I’ve got to climb out for a few minutes, Chink, with a friend o’ mine here,” said his assistant, as he pulled on his coat. He turned back at the swing door. “You’d better put those two jags out before they get messin’ things up,” he suggested easily, as he held the door for Durkin. A moment later the two men were out in the street, swallowed up in the afternoon crowds swarming to ferries and Elevated stations, as free as the stenographers and clerks at their elbows. Durkin wondered, as he hurried on with a glance at the passing faces, if they, too, had their underground trials and triumphs. He wondered if they, too, had explored some portion of that secret network of excitement and daring which ran like turgid sewers under the asphalted tranquillity of the open city.