Transcriber’s Notes can be found at the end of this eBook.
OTHER BOOKS BY MR. STRINGER
The Door of Dread
The Man Who Couldn’t Sleep
The House of Intrigue
Twin Tales
The Prairie Wife
The Prairie Mother
The Prairie Child
Quite motionless, waiting over the sounder, bent the woman
THE
WIRE TAPPERS
By
ARTHUR STRINGER
INDIANAPOLIS
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1906, 1922
By The Bobbs-Merrill Company
Printed in the United States of America
PRESS OF
BRAUNWORTH & CO
BOOK MANUFACTURERS
BROOKLYN, N. Y.
THE WIRE TAPPERS
CHAPTER I
The discharged prisoner hung back, blinking out at the strong sunlightwith preoccupied and unhappy eyes. When the way at last seemed clear hethrust his hands deep in his pockets, and with an assumption of bravadothat seemed incongruous to the stern and thoughtful face, saunteredtoward Sixth Avenue.
At the corner, a crowd of idlers watched two workmen on a scaffolding,cleaning the stone of Jefferson Market with a sand-blast. It was notuntil he had forced his way in on one side of this crowd, and edgedcircuitously out on the other, that he felt at ease with the world. Itwas like dipping into a stream: it seemed to wash away something scarletand flaming. A more resolute touch of self-respect came back to him. Thesquare shoulders took on some old-time line of natural dignity. He wasof the world again.
He crossed Sixth Avenue with quicker steps, and then, smitten with thepangs of sudden hunger, pushed his way into an oyster-bar on the nextstreet corn