But it was not necessary for Bubbles to give the message at the door of
the inner room, since at that moment Barbara entered, her round arms
bare to the elbow and her street dress completely hidden by a sort of
blue gingham overall. Bubbles, whose presence was not required during
working hours, at once withdrew to his bedroom.
Here he changed his tunic of brass buttons for a plain gray jacket,
snatched his cap from its hook, gained the street by a back stair, and
set off at the tireless street-boy trot that eats up the blocks. Half an
hour later he returned, his face no longer wearing a look of anxiety,
changed back into his many-buttoned jacket of dependence, and sitting
upon his bed, his back against the pillows, proceeded with astonishing
deftness and precision to figure with the stump of a pencil, upon the
leaves of a small dog-eared note-book. Then, appearing to have achieved
a satisfactory solution of whatever problem he had had occasion to
attack, he began to go through a series of restless fidgetings, which
ended with a sigh of relief and a guilty look, and producing from a
hiding-place a cigarette, he smoked it out of the window, so that his
room might not carry forward the faintest trace of its telltale odor.