‘But, since the young lady is certainly not in the house at present, she must have eluded your observation, and, in some manner, have left it without your seeing her.’
‘I don’t believe she did, I don’t see how she could have done,—there’s something queer about that house, since that Arab party’s been inside it. But though I didn’t see her, I did see someone else.’
‘Who was that?’
‘A young man.’
‘A young man?’
‘Yes, a young man, and that’s what puzzled me, and what’s been puzzling me ever since, for see him go in I never did do.’
‘Can you describe him?’
‘Not as to the face, for he wore a dirty cloth cap pulled down right over it, and he walked so quickly that I never had a proper look. But I should know him anywhere if I saw him, if only because of his clothes and his walk.’
‘What was there peculiar about his clothes and his walk?’
‘Why, his clothes were that old, and torn, and dirty, that a ragman wouldn’t have given a thank you for them,—and as for fit,—there wasn’t none, they hung upon him like a scarecrow—he was a regular figure of fun; I should think the boys would call after him if they saw him in the street. As for his walk, he walked off just like the first young man had done, he strutted along with his shoulders back, and his head in the air, and that stiff and straight that my kitchen poker would have looked crooked beside of him.’