'He said,' went on the guard, 'that he had tried to make us understand that it was all a mistake about you, you know, but we didn't hear him.'
'So you told him that my friend and I were upon the S.S.?' I said.
'Why, yes; was that——'
'Never mind. What did he say about the others—the tall man with the fez, for instance? He had a notebook and some bills in his hand, you may remember.'
'Yes, sir, I do. Yes, he told me about him. Jumbo! but didn't you all get into a muddle. He had a narrow escape, too—the tall man, you know. Did you know who he was?'
I shook my head.
'Well, sir, he came very near being fleeced too. He wanted to change a bill, it seems, and the old farmer and the other fellow—the one that told me, you know, had both been getting some change from a man that claimed to make a business of changing foreign paper and large bills, to accommodate people.'
'Oh!' I ejaculated.
'Yes, sir; and this gentleman—he was a big man, you know; one of them foreign managers, and couldn't speak very good English—was just going to change with them, a hundred, I think he said, when somebody sets up the cry of pickpocket, you know.'
'Yes, I know; go on.'