New Britain herald., 1923-04-21
What Madge Sew After She Felt
 Eyes Upon Her and Dicky

Eyes Upon Her and Dicky
 Dicky stepped out of the taxicab, paid the man his fare and added the lavish tip that makes him carelessly generous husband boon to walters and taxicab drivers. Then he helped me to alight and escorted me up the steps to the doors of the apartment house, his stick evidencing visible disgust in every protesting twirl.
 Mice savory neighborhood, you've picked, Madge," he observed, pausing in tho act of inserting his key into the outside lock. It was after mid- night and the outside apartment doors were closed. Dicky shot a glance up and down the dimly lighted street. Anybody could stage anything along here, from a wife murder to a mail truck robbery, and make nice clean, leisurely getaway"
 My glance followed his. and with q little shiver acknowledged the truth of his words. Thesl long narrow street stretched dim, sinister and quiet, from the bright lights of Eighth avenue, not very many yards from us. to the brighter but more distant ones of Seventh avenue, almost long city block away.
 Like group of disreputable old crones, who had taken drop too much, the forlorn old buildings, once the smart pride of former genera ton, seemed to nod in grotesque drunken drowsiness at each other, while the single modern apartment house of the street, almost directly opposite us. reared her head and skirts from the squalor of the thor oughfare, as might great lady sud- denly bundled out of her carriage into a dirty farmyard.
 Dicky is Disguised
 Frowsy little shops, deserted now, and dark save for a single guarding light away back in their musty depths, seemed keeping one leering eye open for the morrow's keen chaffering. From one corner of Eighth avenue a wavering torch light marked the place where the bulky proprietor of an all- night fruit stand kept his unwieldy body active in displaying his wares, while from the other gleamed the one wholesome homely illumination of the whole thoroughfare, the bright lights of busting bakery, preparing bread and rolls for the morrow's consump ton.
 Its neither fish, flesh, nor yet our old friend, the good red herring" Dicky grumbled, as he bent to the key again, and opening the wide doors, ushered me through, with the touch of ceremonious courtesy which is sec ond nature to him. "If you want up to-dateness, you should have gone north. If romantic atmosphere his voice dripped disdain-'to the south and the Village, old dear But this"
 The parabola his stick described consigned our surroundings to the hinterland of. his aversion, and he staIked up the stairs without further words
 ''Hush! Hurry I"
 I could not share his viewpoint, as, by his side, mounted the wide steps of the great broad curving staircase which wound from the first floor to the roof. with frosted-glass windows of the vintage of 50 years ago en- closing the back of each light. It was a really magnificent thing of solid carved walnut, and it gave quite a baronial air to the old apartment house, one Of the three or four good houses on the street, which evidently has been the last word in luxurfant apartment housing when it was built and which now, in the housing short age of New York, had been cut up into the tiny suites which spelled the social downfall of housekeeping apart ments.
 We had almost reached the landing of the second floor upon which our own domicile is situated, when my in- tuition told me that some ones eyes were upon us in furtive hidden watch fulness.
 am unusually sensitive to the scru- tiny of any one. and rarely do l fail to detect it whether hidden or open. With lively sense of Dicky's ridi- cule were to vote my belief, let my eyes wander wit seeming careless ness around the expanse of wall be- fore us.
 Whats eating you, old dear?" Dicky began with characteristic rail- lery, but I clutched his arm with a whispered: Hush !"
 For at last knew that I had suc-