Would I come back to the city and run the risk of being taken if I was hiding out there in the lots?
“Not much!” I says to myself. “I’d just keep right on by the Long Island railroad, get to [Greenport] and cross over to New London, where I could take the train on the Northern railroad straight to Montreal.”
Why, it was a splendid chance. The more I thought about it the more I seemed to see how splendid it was.
“He’s done it! I’ll just bet a dollar he’s done it!” I thought. “The taking of that berth on the Central was a blind just as Old King Brady said. He’s gone already, I make no doubt.”
However, I kept right on.
You never seen such forlorn houses as these were in all your born days.
There was a whole row of them, many as a dozen altogether. The windows were all broke and the doors bursted in, and in one or two places the folks in the neighborhood had carried away a whole lot of the weather-boards to burn.
There was only two houses in the whole row what had folks living into them, and one of them was the very number I wanted.
I tell you I was all in a shake when I knocked on the door—there wasn’t no bell.
When the woman came to the door I had my little story all ready.