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ing news of some sort. Conceivably he had come to tell them that the officers of the law were on their track; in which case, unless I misjudged them, they certainly would not stand upon the order of their going. With all possible haste they might have rushed from the place, never to return. In that case what would become of me? With that disgusting rag in my mouth, which felt each second as if it would choke me, I could not utter a sound. Suppose someone did come to the house the police, for instance; I could not hear them. Possibly they might not discover the presence of a cellar at the foot of those mean, rotten stairs. What could I do?
I suppose I stayed in that condition of helpless inaction for five or six hours, wandering, to the best of my ability, all over the cellar. I could not be sure that I did not traverse the same piece of ground twice, but I did my best to learn with my feet what kind of place it was. I walked from wall to wall, counting my steps as I went by which I judged it to be about sixteen feet across in one direction and fifteen in the other. What it had been used for I could not make out possibly as some sort of lumber room. There seemed to be all sorts of queer things upon the floor whose nature I could not ascertain. I should have liked to be able to strike a match, and see what some of them were.
As time went on I became both hungry and tired. I had been a little late that morning; there had only been time for me to scamp my breakfast. I had had no dinner, which I always had at the Borough Restaurant as near as possible to one o'clock, and which was to me the meal of the day. I began to feel the want of it. It is odd how hungry one can get if one knows it is impossible to get anything to eat and thirsty.
I do not know how long I had been there when it first began to dawn upon me that my hands were not so tightly tied as they had been. I had become weary of standing, and found that leaning against the wall afforded a little rest. I was unwilling to sit down; one expe
