This is just what I done. I wrote a letter to Mr. Clancy and sent it out to a cousin of mine in Wisconsin to mail. I didn’t tell any one I done this.
After about ten days I got a letter from my cousin enclosing one from Mr. Clancy.
He was very glad that I had sense enough to take in the greatest opportunity of the age. He would meet me at Van Dyke’s hotel in the Bowery, just as I said, and would soon show me the way to get rich.
I said in my answer that I’d be in front of the hotel on a certain day at a certain hour, and would blow my nose twice with a red handkerchief. He was to know me by that. The name I gave was Spalding. I made out I kept a country store at Jim’s River—that’s the name of the town where my cousin lived.
Of course I was on hand at the appointed time.
So was Mr. Clancy.
I was made up just a little—not much—but I wasn’t made up like Mr. Spalding.
Not a bit of it. I got Sam Kean to do that, for I had told him all about the case, and asked him to help me out, which of course he did, for ever since that night I saved his life in that Broadway store, Sam and me has been the best of friends.
Sam stood right in front of the Van Dyke just as the big clock behind the bar was striking three.
I was just across Bayard street, standing in the doorway of the New England, taking the whole business in.