he asked:

"Did you move the big woman with the big trunk at two o'clock
yesterday?"

"An' if I did?" said the expressman, on the defensive.

"Nothing if you did; but _did_ you?" replied Grey.

"It's chilly weather," replied the expressman, winking hard at a saloon
opposite.

"Yes, and I think a drop of something wouldn't hurt us," added Grey,
following the direction of the expressman's wink and thought quickly.

They stepped over to the saloon and were soon calmly looking at each
other through the bottom of some glasses where there had been whiskey
and sugar. They looked at each other twice this way, and finally they
were obliged to take the third telescopic view of each other before they
could resume the subject.

Then the expressman looked very wise at Grey, remarking musingly, "A big
'oman with a big trunk, eh?"

"Yes, a pretty fine-looking woman, too."

"Purty cranky?"

"Yes."

"And steps purty high wid a long sthride?"

"Exactly."

"'N has clothes that stand up sthiff wid starch 'n silk 'n the makin'?"

"The very same," said Grey anxiously.

"I didn't move her," said the expressman, shaking his head solemnly.

Grey felt like "giving him one," as he said in his reports, but
repressed himself and said pleasantly that he was sorry he had troubled
him, and turned to go away, knowing this would unloosen his companion's
tongue, if anything would.

"Sthop a bit, sthop a bit; you didn't ax me did I know ef any other
party moved her?"

"That's so," said Grey, smiling and waiting patiently for developments.

"Av coorse it's so." Then looking very knowingly, he said mysteriously,
"The man's just ferninst the Planters',--not a sthone's throw away. He's
a big Dutchman, 'n got a dollar fur the job."

They were both around the corner in a moment, and Grey at once made
inquiries of the German owner of a "grey horse and a covered wagon" as
to what part of the city he had removed the trunk.

He was very secretive about the matter, and refused any information
whatever.

"Come, come, me duck," said the Irishman, "me frind here is an officer,
'n ef ye don't unbosom yerself in a howly minit, ye'll be altogether
shnaked before the coort!"

He said this with such an air of pompous sincerity, as if he had the
whole power of the government at his back, that the German at once began
relating the circumstances in such a detailed manner that he would have
certainly been engaged an entire hour in the narrative,