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polo coat hesitated, then went after him. The sloping tunnel echoed the high-pitched thock-thocks of the wooden-heeled shoes.
    The cripple pulled himself energetically up the stairs. Outside it was raining, a tired thin rain. It was about quarter to six, but night was already falling. The cripple made his way up Sixth Avenue, past the wire fence that enclosed the cement handball courts, the grass plots and the row of benches. As the thock-thocks behind him continued, he realized with vague uneasiness that the green-eyed man was following him. He lengthened his sloppy steps and caught the bag up under his arm.
    After a few yards the green-eyed man called, “Hey!” and stretched forth a crooked finger.
    The cripple kept going.
    â€œHey!” the smaller man said, running up, seizing the wild arm and wrenching the cripple around. “That’s my bag you’ve got there!” His face was bristling and determined.
    The cripple looked at the bag under his arm, and kept the same bland expression. His wide, fluted lips opened but no sound came.
    The smaller man saw the slow eyes, the nose and mouth that were squeezed absurdly between the doughy forehead and the smooth jaw. One ear bent under the black-and-white checked cap, but where the other ear should have been was a daub of white flesh like the opening of a balloon which is tied with string.
    He yanked the bag from under the cripple’s arm, ripped the zipper halfway and took a quick look in, then closed it. He shot a glance into the calm eyes. “Thief! . . . Dope!” Then, with a contemptuous movement of his mouth, “I oughta turn you in!” But he walked away with the bag, on up Sixth Avenue.
    The cripple looked after him, and at the bag under his arm, watched both become smaller. His figure gave a convulsion, and abruptly he flung himself after the polo coat, up the long block toward Eighth Street. So fast did his long legs cover the ground that he was only some thirty feet behind when the man with the bag turned into a bar and disappeared.
    He relaxed his gait and came to a stop outside the bar and grill. He looked meekly from under the cap brim into the mellow interior, and put his hand on the slimy iron pipe of a parking sign. Wisps of white steam came fast from his lips.
    Inside, over the mole-colored curtain that hid half the window, the cripple could see the green hat bend now and then as the man sipped his beer. He came closer to the window, and saw the bag sitting on a stool beside the man. After a moment, the man in the bar slid open the zipper and put a hand inside. The cripple felt a leaden throb in his chest. Just as slowly, the man closed the zipper and, standing up, crossed the muffler under his coat, tilting his head to get the smoke stream out of his eyes.
    Shyly, the cripple moved a few feet down the sidewalk, stood in the doorway of a haberdashery shop and looked toward the bar.
    The man with the khaki bag came out and walked straight across Sixth Avenue, past the House of Detention for Women, up the left side of Greenwich Avenue.
    Behind him now came the cripple, exerting himself only enough to match the other’s now-moderate pace. First he had to think exactly what to say to the green-eyed man. But his brain seemed to jam. It refused to create the proper picture, the proper words, to imagine one moment beyond the here-and-now. He followed doggedly up the street, his eyes fixed on the khaki bag.
    At Seventh Avenue the first man crossed, while the cripple was caught by a stream of traffic. The streetlights came out suddenly, jumping on in groups up the avenue, making the sky darker. The cripple was a block behind when the man turned west onto Jane Street. Though the street was dim, the cripple could see the pale haze of the polo coat, and could hear once or twice the raucous slip of a heel on the slanting sidewalk before a garage.
    The polo coat crossed Hudson Street, continued westward, and turned north onto Greenwich