"A couple of hours more," he said to himself, and slowly
sauntered back to the road and struck off toward Manlius Center.
Night was falling when three men, sitting silently in a bare,
dusty, unfurnished room, looked up as a queer scratching sounded
on the outer door. They glanced at each other. "It is the
Weasel, think you not?" said one, a tall man with a sear across
his cheek. It was a mark that was scarcely noticeable unless he
was angry; then it suddenly went white and stood out clearly
across his brown skin.
A thick-set man at the table gathered up a greasy pack of cards.
"Yes, it's the Weasel, all right," he said. "I'm glad he obeys
orders. I told him not to show his face here before dark."
The third man did not speak. He sat in the best of the poor
chairs, and was snowed under with newspapers. He had the look of
an educated man, the jaw of a brute, the cold eye of a panther,
almost golden in color, and the slender hands that held the
printed sheet had the delicate, thin fingers of a thief.
"Door, Adolph!" he said abruptly. The thickset man rose,
spilling his cards. The third man pierced him with a look.
"Butter fingers!" he gritted, cursing softly in a foreign tongue.
Adolph left the room and noiselessly went down a rickety flight
of stairs.
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