“Whenever you want anything, dear friend, or if you just want to see me, come to the Cave; come to Razyeziy Street and ask for the Cave, and at the Cave anyone will show you where to find Yuzitch.  If the barkeeper makes difficulties just whisper to him that ‘Secret’ sent you, and he’ll show you at once.”

As this memory suddenly flashed into his mind, Bodlevski caught up his hat and coat and hurried downstairs into the street.  Making his way through the narrow, dirty streets to the Five Points, he stopped perplexed.  Happily he noticed a sleepy watchman leaning leisurely against a wall, and going up to him he said: 

“Tell me, where is the Cave?”

“The what?” asked the watchman impatiently.

“The Cave.”

“The Cave?  There is no such place!” he replied, looking suspiciously at Bodlevski.

Bodlevski put his hand in his pocket and pulled out some small change: 
“If you tell me——­”

The watchman brightened up.  “Why didn’t you say so before?” he asked, grinning.  “You see that house, the second from the corner?  The wooden one?  That’s the Cave.”

Bodlevski crossed the street in the direction indicated, and looked for the sign over the door.  To his astonishment he did not find it and only later he knew that the name was strictly “unofficial,” only used by members of “the gang.”

Opening the door cautiously, Bodlevski made his way into the low, dirty barroom.  Behind the bar stood a tall, handsome man with an open countenance and a bald head.  Politely bowing to Bodlevski, with his eyes rather than his head, he invited him to enter the inner room.  But Bodlevski explained that he wanted, not the inner room, but his friend Yuzitch.

“Yuzitch?” said the barkeeper thoughtfully.  “We don’t know anyone of that name.”

“Why, he’s here all the time,” cried Bodlevski, in astonishment.

“Don’t know him,” retorted the barkeeper imperturbably.

“‘Secret’ sent me!” Bodlevski suddenly exclaimed, without lowering his voice.

The barkeeper looked at him sharply and suspiciously, and then asked, with a smile: 

“Who did you say?”

“‘Secret,’” repeated Bodlevski.

After a while the barkeeper said, “And did your—­friend make an appointment?”

“Yes, an appointment!” Bodlevski replied, beginning to lose patience.

“Well, take a seat in the inner room,” again said the barkeeper slyly.  “Perhaps your friend will come in, or perhaps he is there already.”

Bodlevski made his way into a roomy saloon, with five windows with faded red curtains.  The ceiling was black from the smoke of hanging lamps; little square tables were dotted about the floor; their covers were coarse and not above reproach on the score of cleanliness.  The air was pungent with the odor of cheap tobacco and cheaper cigars.  On the walls were faded oleographs of generals and archbishops, flyblown and stained.