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IKE SLUMP'S FRIENDS
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Two or three heads went close together. There was a brief undertoned conference.
"We don't bite," finally announced the spokesman of the crowd. "We'll take your message to Ike. If he wants to find you, he knows how."
"All right," said Ralph, moving away—"only he may wait too long. I'll give you a quarter to put me in touch with him for two minutes."
No one responded to the offer. A little dirty-faced urchin, who looked unhappy and out of place with that motley crew, looked longingly at Ralph. No one called him back as he moved slowly away.
Ralph left the place, and had gone about two hundred yards down the track along a high fence, when he heard a thin, piping voice call out :
"Hold on, mister, back up—I want to tell you something!"
