As we crossed Broadway Pete pointed out one place which had been going until a short time ago, an odious looking place (as I remember it) within. It was but a short way from a club of distinguished membership. So much had this doggery become frequented by these gentlemen that it became jocularly known among them as the "club annex." Continuing on over into the West Side, here was a place, now a shop dealing in raincoats, but formerly a "gin-mill" where throughout this last winter there had been an extraordinary infusion of Bacardi rum, drunk neat, as their favorite drink, by its multitudinous customers. And there was a place, a baby carriage exhibited for sale in its window now, which as a saloon had burned out one night not long ago; when its proprietor accepted the catastrophe with striking cheerfulness, withdrew his business activities to his nearby apartment and took up calling upon old customers by appointment. Innumerable the places over which Pete breathed a sigh, which had lately turned into tobacco stores or candy shops. We turned in at a door on Sixth Avenue. A little more caution seemed to be observed here than at the place we had just left. But Pete, of course, would pass any scrutiny. The liquor bottle, you noted, stood within the safe at the inner end of the bar, its door hanging ready at any moment to be kicked to. The barman covered with his hand the little glasses he set out until you took them, and admonished, "Get away with it!" The drinks were eighty cents a throw, but they had the feel of genuine good-grade rye. Night had fallen. We passed into the back room, where a pathetic object was banging dismal tunes on a rattle-trap of a piano. A party of four entered. The young women were very young and decidedly attractive. The two couples began to circle about in a dance. Next moment came a terrific thundering on the front of the building. "Cop wants less noise," said the waiter to the dancers; "you'll have to quit." "Throw that into you," he said to the seated customer he was serving, and directly whisked away the glasses. "When I go back home," said my friend from the Middle West, "and tell them about this they won't believe it." CHAPTER XXVII NOSING 'ROUND WASHINGTON I I came very near to being shot in the White House grounds the other day. Yep! You see, my friend is a bit on the order of what the modistes call "stylish stout." Rather more than a bit, indeed. Looks something like a slightly youthfuller Irvin Cobb. Also wouldn't consider it decent of him out of doors not to "wear" his stag-handled cane. Altogether, not unlikely to be taken for a real somebody. He was fishing round in his breast pocket for the letter his senator from "back home" had given him to the President's secretary. Drew out what may have seemed an important looking document.