along the edge of them. Mrs. Markyn and Walter came in hurriedly. The man took the folded note paper which Mrs. Markyn gave him and opened it out under the library lamp and looked at it through a magnifying glass. "It ain't so bad," he said. "Much better than you ought to expect to get under such circumstances. Come here," he ordered.
Peewee hesitated; Jeffrey gently pushed him toward the stranger.
"It's the left hand," the man directed. He took Peewee's small left hand and rolled his fingers one by one upon the pad and then upon one of the cards. "Let's try again," he said, repeating the process.
The conversation of the streets had taught Peewee that they took the finger marks of criminals like this. He did not know exactly why they took his but he resented it. Did they think he had done something? He looked across the man's arm at the letter which Mrs. Markyn had brought, and conceived a certain contempt because of its beginning—"My dearest," it began. A corner of the sheet was black with ink,
