“Ah, that’s the rub,” said Michael. “He’s been in possession of the desired article, let me see—since Wednesday, about four o’clock, and is now, I should imagine, on his way to the isles of Javan and Gadire.”
“Michael,” said Morris pleadingly, “I am in a very weak state, and I beg your consideration for a kinsman. Say it slowly again, and be sure you are correct. When did he get it?”
Michael repeated his statement.
“Yes, that’s the worst thing yet,” said Morris, drawing in his breath.
“What is?” asked the lawyer.
“Even the dates are sheer nonsense,” said the leather merchant. “The bill was cashed on Tuesday. There’s not a gleam of reason in the whole transaction.”
A young gentleman, who had passed the trio and suddenly started and turned back, at this moment laid a heavy hand on Michael’s shoulder.
“Aha! so this is Mr. Dickson?” said he.
The trump of judgment could scarce have rung with a more dreadful note in the ears of Pitman and the lawyer. To Morris this erroneous name seemed a legitimate enough continuation of the nightmare in which he had so long been wandering. And when Michael, with his brand-new bushy whiskers, broke from the grasp of the stranger and turned to run, and the weird little shaven creature in the low-necked shirt followed his example with a bird-like screech, and the stranger (finding the rest of his prey escape him) pounced with a rude grasp on Morris himself, that gentleman’s frame of mind might be very nearly expressed in the colloquial phrase: “I told you so!”
“I have one of the gang,” said Gideon Forsyth.