"Smokee some more?"
The fingers relaxed. It was only Sam Wah, one of the attendants.
"Nix!" said Larry the Bat, in a slightly muddled tone. "Got enough."
The curtain fell into place again. Larry the Bat's lips set in a thin
smile. Ultimately it made little difference whether it was the police or
the underworld! The smile grew thinner. It was the flip of a coin, that
was all! With one there was the death house at Sing Sing for the Gray
Seal; with the other--well, there were many ways, from a shot or a knife
thrust in the open street, to his murder in some hidden dive like
this of Chang Foo's, for instance, where he now was--the Gray Seal was
responsible for the occupancy of too many penitentiary cells by those of
the underworld to look for any other fate!
He raised himself up sharply on his elbow. A shrill, high note, like
the scream of a parrakeet, rang out a second time. He tore the curtain
aside, and jumped to his feet. All around him, in the twinkling of an
eye, Chinamen in fluttering blouses, chattering like magpies, mingled
with snarling, cursing whites, were running madly. A voice, prefaced
with an oath, bawled out behind him, as he sprang forward and joined the
rush:
"Beat it! De cops! Beat it!"
The police! A raid! Was it for HIM? From rooms, an amazing number of
them, more forms rushed out, joined, divided, separated, and dashed,
some this way, some that, along branching passageways.
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