rang a few minutes before nine last night, and when I opened the door he was here. As soon as I got the door open he jabbed a pistol at me, and said:
“ ‘Inside, kid!’
“I let him in with no hesitancy at all: I was quite instantaneous about it, and he kicked the door to behind him.
“ ‘Where’s the fire-escape?’ he asked.
“The fire-escape doesn’t come to any of my windows, and I told him so, but he wouldn’t take my word for it. He drove me ahead of him to each of the windows; but of course he didn’t find his fire-escape, and he got peevish about it, as if it were my fault. I didn’t like some of the things he called me, and he was such a little half-portion of a man, so I tried to take him in hand. But—well, man is still the dominant male so far as I’m concerned. In plain American, he busted me in the nose and left me where I fell. I was dazed, though not quite all the way out, and when I got up he had gone. I ran out into the corridor then, and found some policemen on the stairs. I sobbed out my pathetic little tale to them, and they told me of the Coplin robbery. Two of them came back here with me and searched the apartment. I hadn’t seen him actually leave, and they thought he might be foxy enough or desperate enough to jump into a closet and stay there until the coast was clear. But they didn’t find him here.”
“How long do you think it was after he knocked you down that you ran out into the corridor?”
“Oh, it couldn’t have been five minutes. Perhaps only half that time.”
“What did Mr. Robber look like?”
“Small, not quite so large as I; with a couple of days’ growth of light hair on his face; dressed in shabby blue clothes, with black cloth gloves.”