swashbuckler from Pekin? Not much!"

"I hope you are right, sir," said McCulloch. "Even when we reach New
York I must trouble you two gentlemen to come to the station-house and
report the whole affair, as I was due there an hour ago, and the entire
precinct will have been scoured for news of me by this time."

Devar laughed loudly.

"I don't want to alarm you, McCulloch--not that you are of the neurotic
habit, judging by the way you took a chance of having a hole bored
through you while searching that blessed barge--but if you believe you
can frame a cut-and-dried programme during the time you have retained
John D. Curtis's services as guide, philosopher, and friend, you are
hugging a delusion. I started out from a happy home last evening
intending to pick up a friendless stranger and show him the orthodox
sights of New York. Gee whizz! Look at me now! I missed John D. by a
few minutes, but found myself gaping with the crowd at the scene of a
murder in which he had figured heavily. Since then I have helped to
break open hotel doors, discovered a villain tied and gagged by other
villains, stood on my head in Morris Siegelman's joint, started a riot
in East Broadway, helped a detective to commit a larceny, cheeked a
British lord, and scoffed at a Hungarian prince, to say nothing of the
present racket. So don't you go making plans for the night yet a
while, McCulloch, because John D. will keep you busy without any call
for you exercising your brain cells in that respect."

The roundsman did not try to grasp the inner significance of this
rigmarole. He was unfeignedly glad to have escaped from an awkward
predicament.

"Anyhow," he said briefly, "if it comes to the worst I can ring up my
captain from the nearest station-house, and at least he will know where
I am."

"Don't be too sure of that, either. Suppose you had 'phoned your
captain before you went on board the barge, would he be any the wiser
now? Just to prove the exceeding wisdom of my remarks, do you know
where you are at the present moment? Because _I_ don't."

The policeman stopped short, and gazed ahead with a new anxiety. The
mist was thinner here, and pin-points of light from a row of lamps
showed in a straight line for a considerable distance. For an instant
there was an embarrassed pause, because all three failed to remember
covering any similar stretch of level road after descending the hill
and turning into the lane leading to the Hud