Part 33 (1/2)

But the other had found the twine lying the length of the pa.s.sage. ”Some one's come in from the river,” he said, ”and dropped all this string,”

He began to gather it in, hand over hand, paused suddenly, and then, with a kind of bravado of terrified politeness, and with a bob of his wild, dark head, exclaimed:

”Good evening, Mr. Blizzard!”

Then the pair cowered as if they expected to be struck, and after a long while the blond one said:

”It ain't him.”

Then the dark one:

”Don't be scared of us. We couldn't hurt a fly if we wanted to. Who is it?”

Now it seemed to Bubbles all of a sudden (though the mention of Blizzard's name had once more given him the horrors) that any risk run in revealing his presence to the blind men was more than compensated by the consequent possibility of ”finding out things” from them. So he said:

”It's only me--just a boy. I found this hole swimmin' and come in to see what it was for.”

”It's only a boy,” said the blond man.

”He wouldn't hurt us,” said the dark one.

”Maybe you'll tell me what all this cellar work is for,” said Bubbles.

The dark man scratched his matted head. ”We don't know,” he said; ”we was just put in here to dig. At first there was ten of us; but we was kep' on to give the finis.h.i.+n' touches.”

”What became of the others?”

”Oh, Mr. Blizzard, he's got other work for them.”

”Is this place under his house?”

”No, sir, it ain't. But the cellar at the head of them steps is.”

”Maybe he's hollered this out to hide things in?”

The blind men turned toward each other and nodded their heads.

”That's just presactly what we think,” said the blond one.

”What do you do when you aren't working?”

”Oh, we sleeps and eats in Blizzard's cellar.”

”How long you been on the job?”

”We don't know. We lost track.”

”See much of Blizzard?”