"Suppose he didn't! I told him to turn south. Any man knows north from south I reckon. Perhaps the white-livered sneak was a Yank at bottom, and lost his nerve."
"Tain't likely. Not from what I seen of him. His kind don't scare so d—d easy at yours, and he came out here to find you, you bet. Why didn't you say turn to the right instead of south? Damfino which is north or south here anyhow. How was he to know?"
"Don't be a fool!" said the other, impatiently, "everybody knows the river runs north and south, and Canal Street runs out right angles to the river, and you turn to the right to go to the lake. It must be south."
Here I couldn't help nudging my neighbor, the aide, who was chuckling with delight at this scientific statement.
"Well, by Gawd! you may know more 'bout it than I do; but when I got off that boat yesterday morning up there by Julia Street, d—n me if the sun wasn't rising in the west then,—over there across Algiers,—and if the Yank is no better posted on the points of the compass than I am, strikes me he's slipped out of your trap easy enough."
"You mean he's gone to the left—past here?" asked the other, snarlingly.
"Just that. He's taken the turn to the left. None of these places this side have been open since we came out; and seeing no one, he's kept on, and probably got back to town some other way. Like enough he's in bed and asleep by this time, and here we've been fooling away the whole night."
Chilled as I was, trembling 'twixt cold and excitement, I was beginning to enjoy this conversation hugely. More than that, both the aide and myself were beginning to feel assured that Amory was safe.
"Then all we can do is go back," said the young man in the buggy, after a moment of silence. "But I'll get that fellow yet," he added, with a torrent of blasphemy. "Get in."
"Where's that flask of yours?" asked the man on the steps. "I want a drink."