“‘Well now,’ said I, to the captain, ‘who have you got?’
“‘That’ll be all right,’ said he, with another grin.
“It was pretty plain that he wasn’t going to say anything. There was something about the way he looked at us and especially about that grin that started me thinking. I decided on bluff number two. I took out my pass case, opened it, and spread out annual passes on the Great Windy, the Erie, the South-eastern, and the Lake Shore. My name was written on all of them, H. L. Tiffany, Pittsburg. The minute the captain saw them he looked queer, and I turned to Charlie and told him to get out his passes, which he did. For a minute the captain couldn’t say anything; then he turned on those three officers, and you ought to have heard what he said to them—gave ’em the whole forty-two degrees right there, concentrated.
“‘Well, gentlemen,’ he said to us, when he’d told the officer all that was on his mind, ‘this is pretty stupid business. I’m very sorry we’ve put you to this trouble, and I can tell you that if there is anything I can do to make it right, I’ll be more than glad to do it.’
“Well, there wasn’t anything in particular that I wanted just then except to get out of Buffalo quick. But I did stop to gratify my curiosity.
“‘Would you mind telling me, Captain,’ said I, ‘who you took us for?’
“The captain looked queer again, then he said, solemn, ‘We took you for body snatchers.’
“‘Body snatchers!’ I looked at Charlie, and Charlie, who was beginning to recover, looked at me.
“‘You see,’ the captain went on, ‘there’s an old building out there by the yard, and some young surgeons and medical students have been using it nights to cut up people in, and when the boys saw two well-dressed young fellows hanging around there in the middle of the night, they didn’t stop to think twice. I’m very sorry, indeed. I’ll send two of these men over to escort you to your hotel, with your permission.’
“That didn’t please me very much, but I couldn’t decline. So we started out, Charlie and I and the two coppers. But instead of going to the Swift House I steered them into the Mansion House, and dampened things up a bit. Then I got three boxes of cigars, Havana imported. I gave one to each of the officers, and on the bottom of the third I wrote, in pencil, ‘To the Captain, with the compliments of H. L. Tiffany, of the A. & G. W., Pittsburg, Pa.’ I thought he might have reason to be interested when he got his next morning’s paper in knowing just who we were. The coppers went back, tickled to death, and Charlie and I got out into the street.