corner known, to those who _knew_, as the "Roost."

The door before which he stopped, on a level with the street, might
readily have passed for the entrance to one of the adjoining tenements,
for it was innocent to all appearances of any connection with the
unlovely resort of which it was a part--and it was closed.

The Flopper rang no bell. After a quick glance around him to assure
himself that he was not observed, he reached up for the doorknob, turned
it, and with surprising agility hopped oven the threshold and closed the
door behind him.

A staircase, making one side of a narrow and dimly lighted hall, from
down whose length came muffled sounds from the barroom, was before him;
and this, without hesitation, the Flopper began to mount, his knee
thumping from step to step, his dangling leg echoing the sound in a
peculiar; quick double thump. He reached the first landing, went along
it, and started up the second flight--but now the thumping sound he made
seemed accentuated intentionally, and upon his face there spread a grin
of malicious humor.

He halted before the door opposite the head of the second flight of
stairs, opened it, wriggled inside and shut it behind him.

"Hullo, Helena!" he snickered. "Pipe me comin'?"

The room was a fairly large one, gaudily appointed with cheap
furnishings, one of the Roost's private parlors--a girl on a couch in
the corner had raised herself on her elbow, and her dark eyes were fixed
uncompromisingly upon the Flopper, but she made no answer.