This tableau—if tableau it could be called, continued for five minutes, and then one of the late arrivals cast aside the stub of a cigar he was smoking, and broke the silence.
"Where might you hoboes be from?" he demanded, in an even tone, and without a gesture of any kind.
Nobody made any reply whatever to this question, and after a moment he spoke again.
"Which one of you is the leader of this outfit?" he asked.
Again nobody replied to him; the assistants kept silent because they well knew that their chief would answer if he considered it wise to do so; and Nick remained silent merely because he did not consider that it was yet time to speak.
And now the spokesman of the other party addressed himself directly to Nick Carter, as being, doubtless, the fiercest and most villainous-looking one of the bunch.
"You heard me, didn't you?" he demanded.
"Yes; I heard you," was the calm reply.
"Hello! You can talk United States, can't you?"
"Quite as well as you, if necessary," was the cool response.