Explore "The Yellow Face" by Fred M. White on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
It was nearly two hours later before Rigby crept cautiously down the steps and emerged by the way in which he had entered the house. The street as before was absolutely deserted; so far as Rigby could see he might have been in a city of the dead. Despite his disguise and the artistic make-up of his grimy face, an acute spectator would not have failed to notice the agitation of his features. He crept with trembling footsteps to the roadway, and clung to the railings with a swaying air of one who has seen things the tongue refuses to describe. Then his natural courage, fanned by the cool air of the evening and the sense of being no longer isolated, returned with virile force to him. Mechanically he fumbled in his rags and produced from a breast pocket a silver cigarette-case, that might have got him into serious trouble if a lynx-eyed policeman had been near at hand.
"Well, I have seen some queer things in my time, but, as the poet says, 'never aught like this," Rigby said, with teeth that chattered a little. "I really must have one of my own cigarettes."