‘Not at all, Mr Levi; but I really don’t know. I only sort of felt that he was a suspicious character. I dismissed him on instinct, as it were. See?’
Without answering this question Mr Levi asked another. ‘If this Jules is such a well-known person,’ he said, ‘how could the feller hope to come to my ball without being recognized?’
‘Give it up,’ said Racksole promptly.
‘Well, I’ll be moving on,’ was Mr Sampson Levi’s next remark. ‘Good day, and thank ye. I suppose you aren’t doing anything in Kaffirs?’
Mr Racksole smiled a negative.
‘I thought not,’ said Levi. ‘Well, I never touch American rails myself, and so I reckon we sha’n’t come across each other. Good day.’
‘Good day,’ said Racksole politely, following Mr Sampson Levi to the door.
With his hand on the handle of the door, Mr Levi stopped, and, gazing at Theodore Racksole with a shrewd, quizzical expression, remarked:
‘Strange things been going on here lately, eh?’
The two men looked very hard at each other for several seconds.