“What is it, my man?” I asked.
He looked about him in the slow methodical fashion of old age.
“Is Mr. Sherlock Holmes here?” said he.
“No; but I am acting for him. You can tell me any message you have for him.”
“It was to him himself I was to tell it,” said he.
“But I tell you that I am acting for him. Was it about Mordecai Smith’s boat?”
“Yes. I knows well where it is. An’ I knows where the men he is after are. An’ I knows where the treasure is. I knows all about it.”
“Then tell me, and I shall let him know.”
“It was to him I was to tell it,” he repeated, with the petulant obstinacy of a very old man.
“Well, you must wait for him.”