But he could not know this, and so he plunged into the dark hall-
way and sprang up the first four flights of stairs, three steps at a
jump, with one arm stretched out in front of him, for it was very dark
and the turns were short. On the fourth floor he fell headlong over a
bucket with a broom sticking in it, and cursed whoever left it there.
There was a ladder leading from the sixth floor to the roof, and he
ran up this and drew it after him as he fell forward out of the wooden
trap that opened on the flat tin roof like a companion-way of a ship.
The chimneys would have hidden him, but there was a policeman's helmet
coming up from another companion-way, and he saw that the Italians
hanging out of the windows of the other tenements were pointing at him
and showing him to the officer. So he hung by his hands and dropped
back again. It was not much of a fall, but it jarred him, and the race
he had already run had nearly taken his breath from him. For Rags did
not live a life calculated to fit young men for sudden trials of
speed.
He stumbled back down the narrow stairs, and, with a vivid
recollection of the bucket he had already fallen upon, felt his way
cautiously with his hands and with one foot stuck out in front of him.
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