“Well, sign it.” He pushed a pen toward him, and the Swede took it in clumsy fingers and wrote laboriously, “Nels Nelson.”
“You didn’t write this message?”
“No. I vork by de hotel, und I get a man write it.”
“It isn’t dated. Been carrying it around in your pocket a good while I guess. Better date it.”
“Date it?”
“Yes. Put down the time you send, you know.”
“Oh, dat’s not’ing. He know putty goot when he get it.”
“Very well. ‘To Mr. John Thomas,––State Street, Chicago. Job’s ready. Come along.’ Who’s job is it? Yours?”
“No. It’s hees yob yet. You mak it go to-night, all right. Goot night. I pay it now, yas. Vell, goot night.”
He paid the boy and slipped out into the shadows of the street, and again making the detour so that he came to the hotel from the rear, he passed the stables, and before climbing to his cupboard of a room at the top of the building, he stepped round to the side and looked in at the dining room windows, and there he saw the young man seated at supper.