Soon the men from the shipyard surrounded the two men, one of whom had been designated by the sentence: "There's the ticket guy now."
Money began to change hands, and tickets were passed around. The four men who had kept together shoved their way through the crowd of ship workers.
"How much are the tickets?" one asked.
"Thirty-five cents," was the answer. "They'll cost you fifty or seventy-five at the wagon. The only reason we sell 'em this way is to avoid the rush. Then, too, you're really buying 'em at wholesale."
"I'll take four," said the man of the quartette.
"Here you are! Four."
There was another clink of money and a rustle of slips of paper. Then the man who had passed over the tickets, said:
"Here's your change. That was a five you gave me, wasn't it? Take your change."
"And you take yours, Bill Carfax!" suddenly cried one of the four. "It's quite a sudden change, too!"
There was a flash of something bright, a metallic click—two of them, in fact—and the ticket seller tried to break away. But he was held by the handcuffs on his wrists, one of the four grasping them by the connecting chain.