“Leave out the ‘leftenant,’ my dear Mr. Alibi; and call me ‘colonel’—it is shorter,” I said, laughing, as I looked at the queer figure. “And so you have not seen Swartz lately? He made an appointment to meet Nighthawk here.”
“Made an app’intment, did he, leftenant—least ways, colonel?”
“Yes.”
“With Mr. Nighthawk?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I reckon they are both dead, or they’d ‘a’ kept their app’intment.”
“Nighthawk dead!”
“He must be, sartain.”
“You are mistaken, friend Alibi,” said a voice behind him.
And Nighthawk, in person, entered the house.