have for getting into this yegg-resort?"

"Simply that we are two newspaper men looking for an article,
without names, dates, or places - just a good story of yeggmen and
tramps. I've got a little - well, we'll call it a little camera
outfit that I'm going to sling over my shoulder. You are the
reporter, remember, and I'm the newspaper photographer. They won't
pose for us, of course, but that will be all right. Speaking about
photographs, I got one out at Montclair that is interesting. I'll
show it to you later in the evening - and in case anything should
happen to me, Walter, you'll find the original plate locked here
in the top drawer of my desk. I guess we'd better be getting
downtown."

The house to which we were guided by the Gay Cat was on a cross
street within a block or two of Chatham Square. If we had passed
it casually in the daytime there would have been nothing to
distinguish it above the other ramshackle buildings on the street,
except that the other houses were cluttered with children and
baby-carriages, while this one was vacant, the front door closed,
and the blinds tightly drawn. As we approached, a furtive figure
shambled from the basement areaway and slunk off into the crowd
for the night's business of pocket-picking or second-story work.

I had had misgivings as to whether we would be admitted at all - I
might almost say hopes - but the Gay Cat succeeded in getting a
ready response at the basement door. The house itself was the
dilapidated ruin of what had once been a fashionable residence in
the days when society lived in the then suburban Bowery. The iron
handrail on the steps was still graceful, though rusted and