"Hell!" was all the creature said.

Dart took him by his greasy collar. Even the brief rush had left him
feeling like a living thing--which was a new sensation.

"Give it up," he ordered.

The thief looked at him with a half-laugh and obeyed, as if he felt the
uselessness of a struggle. He was not more than twenty-five years old,
and his eyes were cavernous with want. He had the face of a man who
might have belonged to a better class. When he had uttered the
exclamation invoking the infernal regions he had not dropped the
aspirate.

"I 'm as hungry as she is," he raved.

"Hungry enough to rob a child beggar?" said Dart.

"Hungry enough to rob a starving old woman--or a baby," with a defiant
snort. "Wolf hungry--tiger hungry--hungry enough to cut throats."

He whirled himself loose and leaned his body against the wall, turning
his face toward it. Suddenly he made a choking sound and began to sob.

"Hell!" he choked. "I'll give it up! I'll give it up!"

What a figure--what a figure, as he swung against the blackened wall,
his scarecrow clothes hanging on him, their once decent material making
their pinning together of buttonless places, their looseness and rents