"Where are you from?" was the next question.
Here, as I saw it, was one of the holes in which a lie might be profitably planted—profitably and safely. So I said, glibly enough: "Cincinnati."
"Street and number?"
I had given Cincinnati merely because I chanced to be somewhat familiar with that city, and now I gave the location of a boarding-house near the river front where I had once stayed over-night.
"Where were you born?"
"In the country, about forty miles from Cincinnati."
"Traveling for your health, I suppose? Where's your baggage?"
I saw that I should have to call a halt somewhere, and this seemed as good a point as any.
"See here," I broke out; "you've got the wrong man, and you know it, and I know it! You have no shadow of right to arrest me without a warrant. Neither have you any right to try to tangle me in my statements so that I shall fall down and give you an excuse for locking me up!"
"Say, young fellow—you cut all that out and quiet down!" advised the plain-clothes man who had nipped me at the railroad terminal.