“Could I see him? I might by chance know him. A newspaper man gets to know a lot of faces.”
“He has been sent back to the capital. If I can venture to warn you——” he paused and looked at me.
“I shall be only too glad of a hint.”
“I should not seek him out then, if I were you. We know little about him, but in our instructions the charge is an ugly one.”
I laughed.
“Well, when we Americans take a thing up we generally do it in earnest, whatever it is. But I don’t believe any American would ever turn Nihilist.”
“Yet you have had Anarchists in your country. Some of your Presidents have been assassinated, monsieur; is it not so?”
“By madmen or wild European scum; not by honest Americans.”
He raised his eyebrows, smiled, and shook his head.
“The disease is the same in all countries. This man is a murderer, monsieur,” he answered slowly and emphatically. “He was escaping.”