“That's it!” said the old man.
“Whisht!” said the son, whose caution was not so easily satisfied; and, turning to me, added, “What was he by trade?”
“He was a shoemaker, and an excellent one,—indeed, I've no hesitation in saying, one of the best in New Orleans.”
“What was the street he lived in?”
Here was a puzzler; for, as my reader knows, I was at the end of my information, and had not the slightest knowledge of New Orleans or its localities. The little scrap of newspaper I had picked up on Anticosti was the only thing having any reference to that city I ever possessed in my life. But, true to my theory to let nothing go to loss, I remembered this now, and, with an easy confidence, said, “I cannot recall the street, but it is just as you turn out of the street where the 'Picayune' newspaper-office stands.”
“Right!—all right, by the father of Moses!” cried Joe, stretching out a brawny hand, and shaking mine with the cordiality of friendship. Then, stepping forward to where the rest of the party were walking, with two most loquacious guides, he said, “Molly! here's a boy knows Dan! Biddy! come here, and hear about Dan!”
Two young girls, in long cloth cloaks, turned hastily round, and drew near, as they exclaimed in a breath, “Oh, tell us about Dan, sir!”
“T is betther wait till we 're in a house,” said the old man, who was, however greedy for news, not a little desirous of a fire and something to eat. “Sure, you 'll come with us, and take yer share of what 's going,” said he to me,—an invitation which, ere I could reply to, was reiterated by the whole party.
“Do you know where we're going here?” asked Joe of me, as we continued our way through mazes of gloomy lanes that grew gradually less and less frequented.
“No,” said I, in a whisper, “but 'tis best be on our guard here: we are in a bad neighborhood.”