Thus abetted and equipped he
came, after a taxi ride and a walk, into his grandmother's street. It
was as seemingly deserted as on that tumultuous night when he had left
it; and on this occasion no figures sprang out of the cover of
shadows, shooting and cursing. He had calculated correctly and
unmolested he gained the pawnshop door, passed the solemn-eyed,
incurious Isaac, and entered the room behind.
His grandmother sat over her accounts at her desk in a corner among
her curios. Hunt, smoking a black pipe, was using his tireless right
hand in a rapid sketch of her: another of those swift, few-stroked,
vivid character notes which were about his studio by the hundreds. The
Duchess saw Larry first; and she greeted him in the same unsurprised,
emotionless manner as on the night he had come back from Sing Sing.
"Good-evening, Larry," said she.
"Good-evening, grandmother," he returned.
Hunt came to his feet, knocking over a chair in so doing, and gripped
Larry's hand. "Hello--here's our wandering boy to-night! How are you,
son?"
"First-rate, you old paint-slinger. And you?"
"Hitting all twelve cylinders and taking everything on high! But say,
listen, youngster: how about your copper friends and those gun-toting
schoolmates of yours?"
"Missed them so far.
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