"That's so, and I'm afraid it will take me a long time to learn. I'm pretty green."
"Well, you may be in some things, but you can go ahead of New Yorkers in lots of ways. That was a great trick, sliding down that lasso."
"It was lucky I had it with me."
"Indeed it was, and it was a good thing those scoundrels took your baggage as well as you, or you might have been there yet."
"No, for you would have helped me, I reckon. You arrived just a few minutes after I had started to escape. How did you manage it?"
"Well, as I said, my dear chap," replied De Royster, adjusting his one eye glass, which had fallen out during the struggle with Wakely, "I made the cabman tell me where he took you, and, after that it was an easy matter to locate you. I got to the tenement right behind Wakely and I followed him up the stairs, though, then, I didn't know who he was, and I rushed into the room as soon as he opened the door, for he forgot to close it when he looked at the bed and saw it empty. I suspected you had been in here, when I saw what a lonesome sort of place it was. I pulled him back, just as he had his knife out, ready to cut the lasso."
"I hardly believe he would have dared to cut it," said Roy. "He only wanted to scare me into coming back."
"Perhaps he did. But I was not going to take any chances; I just grabbed him."
"That was fine on your part."
"Oh, that's nothing. Look what you did for me. I only paid you back a little."