the crowd, that waited on the corners for the stream of traffic to pass,
seemed to have their eyes glued to their newspapers--even Benson, his
chauffeur, during the moment of inaction, was surreptitiously reading a
paper which he had flattened out on the seat beside him!

Jimmie Dale's eyes reverted to the newspaper in his hand, one of the
most conservative. There was no mistaking the tenor of the leading
article on the editorial page:

"It is not so much that a thug and criminal known as Slimmy Jack should
have been murdered by another wretch of his own breed; indeed, that such
should prey upon one another is far from being a matter of regret, for
we might hope in time for the extermination of them all by the simple
process of mutual attrition and at correspondingly little expense to
ourselves--but that this so-called Gray Seal should still prove to be
alive and at large is a matter that concerns every citizen personally.
He does not confine his attentions to the Slimmy Jacks. The criminal
records of the past few years reek with his acts, that run the gamut of
every crime in the decalogue, crimes for the most part actuated
apparently by no other motive than a monstrously innate thirst for
notoriety--and the victims, for the most part, too, have been the
innocent and the defenceless. What is the end of this to be? If the
police cannot cope with this blood-mad ruffian, is New York to sit idly
by and submit to another reign of terror instituted and carried on under
the nose of authority by this inhuman jackal? If so, we are committing a
crime against ourselves, we are insulting our intelligence, and--"

The man who had written that was a personal friend! Jimmie Dale threw
the paper down, and picked up another, and after that another. They
were pretty well all alike. They rehearsed the discovery of Larry the