position, by moving the straw a little, he could look down, without
being himself seen, upon the heads of whomsoever stood below. "This is
better'n a private box, ain't it?" said Gallegher.

The boy from the newspaper office and the detective lay there in
silence, biting at straws and tossing anxiously on their comfortable
bed.

It seemed fully two hours before they came. Gallegher had listened
without breathing, and with every muscle on a strain, at least a dozen
times, when some movement in the yard had led him to believe that they
were at the door. And he had numerous doubts and fears. Sometimes it
was that the police had learnt of the fight, and had raided Keppler's
in his absence, and again it was that the fight had been postponed,
or, worst of all, that it would be put off until so late that Mr.
Dwyer could not get back in time for the last edition of the paper.
Their coming, when at last they came, was heralded by an advance-guard
of two sporting men, who stationed themselves at either side of the
big door.

"Hurry up, now, gents," one of the men said with a shiver, "don't keep
this door open no longer'n is needful."

It was not a very large crowd, but it was wonderfully well selected.
It ran, in the majority of its component parts, to heavy white coats
with pearl buttons. The white coats were shouldered by long blue coats
with astrakhan fur trimmings, the wearers of which preserved a
cliqueness not remarkable when one considers that they believed every
one else present to be either a crook or a prize-fighter.