"Gosh!" he said in a tone almost of admiration. "Gosh! Is that wot edicashun done fer you?"
"Perhaps," said Michael pleasantly, "though I rather think, Sam, that I always felt a bit that way, I just didn't know how to say it."
"Wal, you allus was queer!" muttered Sam half apologetically. "I couldn't see it that way myself, as you say, but o' course it's your fun'ral! Ef you kin scratch up enough grub bein' a tree, why that's your own lookout. Moss is good 'nough fer me fer de present."
Michael beamed his wonderful smile on Sam and answered: "Perhaps you'll see it my way some day, Sam, and then we can get a job together!"
There was so much comraderie in the tone, and so much dazzling brilliancy in the smile that Sam forgot to be sullen.
"Wal, mebbe," he chuckled, "but I don't see no edicashun comin' my way dis late day, so I guess I'll git along de way I be."
"It isn't too late yet, Sam. There's more than one way of getting an education. It doesn't always come through college."
After a little more talk in which Sam promised to find out if there was any way for Michael to visit Jim in his temporary retirement from the law-abiding world, and Michael promised to visit Sam in the alley again at an appointed time, the two separated.
Then Michael went forth to reconnoitre and to guard the house of Endicott.
With no thought of any personal danger, Michael laid his plans. Before sundown, he was on hand, having considered all visible and invisible means of ingress to the house. He watched from a suitable distance all who came and went. He saw Mr. Endicott come home. He waited till the evening drew near when a luxurious limousine stopped before the door; assured himself that only Mrs. Endicott had gone out. A little later Mr. Endicott also left the house. Starr had not gone out. He felt that he had double need to watch now as she was there alone with only the servants.
Up and down he walked. No one passed the Endicott house unwatched by him. None came forth or went in of whom he did not take careful notice.
The evening passed, and the master and mistress of the house returned. One by one the lights went out. Even in the servants' rooms all was dark at last. The night deepened and the stars thickened overhead.
The policeman's whistle sounded through the quiet streets and the city seemed at last to be sinking into a brief repose. It was long past midnight, and still Michael kept up his patrol. Up this side of the street, down that, around the corner, through the alley at the back where "de kids" had stood in silent respect uncovered toward his window years ago; back to the avenue again, and on around. With his cheery whistle and his steady ringing step he awakened no suspicion even when he came near to a policeman; and besides, no lurkers of the dark would steal out while he was so noisily in the neighborhood.