brother,[9] the face care-worn and
anxious, and the shoulders bent over a little as he sat,--scarcely
longer time than this was given them, when the Superintendent laid down
his pen and said, sharply and decisively:

"Well, gentlemen?"

[Footnote 9: Col. William D. Kennedy, of the Tammany Regiment.]

There was nothing very cordial in the tone, and no indication that the
Superintendent considered it peculiarly his place to listen to all the
persons who came to him upon business; but perhaps this comparative
_brusquerie_ is necessary, in the carrying on of any important
department, to discourage bores and send idle people the sooner about
their business. It does not add to popularity, however, and may add
materially to the opposite.

Under such circumstances, it did not need a very long period of time for
Tom Leslie, with the occasional assistance of Harding, whose memory was
much more accurate if not more retentive--to convey to the
Superintendent the main facts of their midnight adventure, with the
impression that adventure had made, of some disloyal movements going on
in the City, and probably with extended ramifications elsewhere. Except
to say that one of the women seen on that evening had before fallen
under his notice in Europe. Leslie did not allude to the episode of the
"red woman," nor did he enter into the particulars of his previous
meetings with Dexter Ralston, though he asserted his knowledge of him as
a Virginian of peculiar influence and a very ambiguous position. The
Superintendent showed few signs of interest in the narration, though his
sharp eye occasionally glanced at the face of the principal narrator,
and though he two or three times made motions with the pencil lying
before him, which might have been merely listless occupation of his
fingers and might have been something very different.

"Well, gentlemen," said the Superintendent, when they had concluded. "It
is certainly a strange story you have been telling, and of course I do
not question the entire veracity of your narration of what you saw or
_thought_ you saw. But there is nothing proved, so far, that could
justify any arrest, even if we could find the persons to arrest. I do
not see that there is anything _I_ could do in the matter."

"I told you so!" said Leslie in a low voice to his friend. He had
opposed coming to the Superintendent at all, be it remembered.

"Nothing?--not even to set a watch upon the two houses we have named?"
a