Pop took his departure, and, as Sallie came down the stairs with a smile of duty done, Madame Blanche could hear muffled screams from above. "Where is she, Sallie?" "She's in de receibin' room, Madame. Jes' let 'er yowl. It'll do her good. I done' tol' er to save her breaf, but she is extravagant. Wait ontil Marse Shepard swings dat whip. She'll have sompen to sing about!" And Sallie went about her duties--to put out the empty beer bottles for the brewery man and to give the prize Pomeranian poodle his morning bath. Madame Blanche retired to her cosy parlor, where, beneath the staring eyes of her late husband's crayon portrait, and amused by the squawking of her parrot, she could forget the cares of her profession in the latest popular problem novel. On the floor above a miserable, weeping country lassie was beating her hands against the thick door of the windowless dark room until they were bruised and bleeding. She sank to her knees, praying for help, as she had been taught to do in her simple life back in the country town. But her prayers seemed to avail her naught, and she finally sank, swooning, with her head against the cruel barrier. Back in the railroad station, Percy and his kind-faced assistant, Pop, were prospecting for another recruit. CHAPTER XI THE POISONED NEEDLE That afternoon Burke improved his time, during a two-hour respite, to hunt for a birthday present for Mary. Manlike, he was shy of shops, so he sought one of the big department stores on Sixth Avenue, where he instinctively felt that everything under the sun could be bought. As Bobbie paused before one of the big display windows on the sidewalk he caught a glimpse of a familiar figure. It was that instinct which one only half realizes in a brief instant, yet which leaves a strong reaction of memory. "Who was that?" he thought, and then remembered: Baxter. Burke followed the figure which had passed him so quickly, and found the same dapper young man deeply engrossed in the window display of women's walking suits. "What can he find so interesting in that window?" mused Burke. "I'll just watch his tactics. I don't believe that fellow is ever any place for any good!" He stood far out on the sidewalk, close to the curb. The passing throng swept in two eddying, opposite currents between him and Baxter, whose attention seemed strictly upon the window. "Well, there's his refined companion," was Burke's next impression, as he espied the effeminate figure of Craig, strolling along the sidewalk close to the same window. "Can they be pickpockets? I would guess that was too risky for them to take a chance on."