"Why do they believe in him now?"
"Oh, it's Chick. Chick is an innocent old Betty, he's as much fooled as the others. He told me that he had put a thousand into this a week ago, and I don't doubt he has. Bowditch would have got a few of them,—there are always some who believe in a wind-bag, no matter how many bunco games he has been in, but Chick got most of them. Who knows anything about Snider? Now I've seen him, I wouldn't let him hold my coat while I ran across the street and back,—not if there was two cents in the coat that I ever wanted to see again. But they swallow him because Chick does, I guess. And Chick does because Bowditch does. And there you are… Where's this Professor? Everything Chick and Bowditch told us while they were rounding us up for this trip was about the Professor. It was Professor this and Professor that,—and now we get here, and he isn't to be seen. What's happened to him?"
"He went to Lanesport just before the steamer came."
"Did you see him go?"
"Why, yes…I…"
"Did you really see him set out on the road and depart?"
"Well, no…I don't know that I did. He went around one corner of the house, as I went around the other with Snider… Why? What do you mean?"
"He aint down under the wharf salting these gold-boxes or doing some other kind of monkey business with 'em? Hey?"
"Why, no," I persisted, weakly, "he's gone to Lanesport, I tell you."
But the idea struck me for the first time,—"down under the wharf,"—that was where I had seen them both yesterday.