k to-night."

And he was.

I had just come in from dinner, and had changed my clothes for an old
suit that had braved the weather in crossing, and was consequently well
salted by Atlantic brine.

"May I offer you a cocktail?" I say.

"No, thank you," he replies.

(_His_ nerve doesn't want fortifying, evidently!) Mine does, so I have a
Manhattan as I hastily pencil a line to my wife to be sent to England in
case I do not leave by the _Majestic_ next day.

"Now, then, what's your programme?" said I in an airy way, as we reached
the street.

"Trust to me," said the "'tec," "interfere with no one, and keep your
pencil and your notebook in your pocket till I tell you. Keep your
mouth shut and your ears and eyes open, and as they say in the
pantomime, 'you shall see what you shall see.'"

We were soon whizzing along the elevated railway, and I was trying to
impress my guide with stirring tales of midnight meanderings in the
greater city, London. I left out any mention of Dublin, for my companion
rejoiced in a truly Milesian cognomen, and still bore strong evidence of
his native country in his accent, mixed with a good dash of American.

"Guess you're a pretty 'cute Britisher, and shure it's the likes of you
I'm mighty glad to strike in this _tre_menjious city!"

I felt somewhat flattered by this encouraging condescension, and I admit
now that I did not feel particularly happy at the idea of bearding the
thieving lion, with his hyena-like satellites, in his den. I felt
something like a criminal under arrest myself, and I am sure that
everyone in the car must have thought that the world-famed detective
force of New York had added another notorious catch to the many they
have so cleverly made.

As we passed close to the windows of the houses, and actually looked
into the rooms on the second and third stories, Detective Jonathan H.
O'Flaherty would point out to me a room here and there which was being
watched by his comrades, and as we approached nearer and nearer to the
purlieus of the poor, he positively detected seated in rooms in shady
hotels which harboured thieves a forger, a housebreaker, and other
notabilities of a worse character. Indeed, I would not have been
surprised had the arm of the law been literally stretched out at any
moment, and one of these gentlemen transferred from his seat through the
window and deposited by my side in the carriage.

America is a free country. England, we are assured, is not