In Garden Street all the houses had been closed and dark, but here they were open and often brightly lighted and noisy from cellar to roof.

Men, women, and frequently children, jostled him on the pavement, and he felt his pockets touched more than once.

But he wasn't Caleb Sweetwater of the New York department of police for nothing.

He laughed, bantered, fought his way through and finally reached the quieter region and, at this hour, the almost deserted one, of the markets.

Sixty-two was not far off, and, pausing a moment to consider his course, he mechanically took in the surroundings.