said:

"I guess we're all right now. We must chance it, anyhow." So we dodged
along in the shadow till we came to Montgomery Street, and after a
brief walk, turned into a gloomy doorway and mounted a worn pair of
stairs.

The house was three stories in height. It stood on the corner of an
alley, and the lower floor was intended for a store or saloon; but a
renting agent's sign and a collection of old show-bills ornamenting the
dirty windows testified that it was vacant. The liquor business
appeared to be overdone in that quarter, for across the alley, hardly
twenty feet away, was a saloon; across Montgomery Street was another;
and two more held out their friendly lights on the corner of the street
above.

In the saloons the disreputability was cheerful, and cheerfully
acknowledged with lights and noise, here of a broken piano, there of a
wheezy accordion, and, beyond, of a half-drunken man singing or
shouting a ribald song. Elsewhere it was sullen and dark,--the lights,
where there were lights, glittering through chinks, or showing the
outlines of drawn curtains.

"This isn't just the place I'd choose for entertaining friends," said
Henry, with a visible relief from his uneasiness, as we climbed the
worn and dirty stair.

"Oh, that's all right," I said, magnanimously accepting his apology.

"It doesn't have all the modern conveniences," admitted Henry as we