"Well, he WAS here, wasn't he?"
"Was here? Oh, yes, he WAS here,—last night."
(As if to say: "He was here until we got on to him.")
"Has he gone away?"
"Gone away? Oh, yes, he's gone away."
This seemed to strike the two men on the piazza—whose ears were almost stretching through the window—as a joke. They both laughed uproariously. The hotel man was evidently unwilling to give up any information until it was wrenched out of him, bit by bit. Mr. Daddles continued the cross-examination.
"Do you know where he's gone?"
"Oh, he went away before six o'clock."
"Well, do you know WHERE he went?"
"Where? Oh, he told me—Joe, where'd he say he was goin'?"