all be." And she grasped the glass and, setting
her face, proceeded to drain the tumbler to the amusement of the
company.

"There," she said, wiping her lips with her handkerchief, as the waiter
left the room, "that tasted about as bad as anything I've had for a long
time; but if it had been castor oil, I'd have drunk every drop rather
than that you'd had it."

A general laugh greeted this sally, and the tramp remarked sheepishly
that he guessed he'd know it the next time he ran up against her.

Then, waxing serious, he resumed his former topic.

"We ain't got no time to waste in frivolity," he said, "and if we're to
get out of this hole, the sooner we makes our plans the better, and
perhaps, as I know more about this business than youse, I'll do the
talking."

Receiving the silent assent of the company, he continued: "I remembers
in the days o' my innocent youth, before I burgled my first watch,
a-playin' of a Sunday-school game, where we went out of the room, and
the bloke what teached us put a quarter somewhere in plain sight, and
when we come in again not one on us could find it, 'cause it was just
under our noses; which the same is the game I'm proposing to play."

"I think I see what you mean," said Banborough. "I've heard it said that
the destruction of most criminals is their cleverness."

"That's just what I'm a-tryin' to point out," replied the tramp. "The
cops gives you the credit of allus tryin' to do the out-o'-the-way
thing, so as to put 'em off the track, while if yer only acted as yer
naturally would if yer hadn't done nothin' to be cotched for, yer could
walk before their eyes and they'd never see yer."

"That sounds all right," said Spotts. "Now what's your advice?"

"To go back to New York," replied the tramp shortly.

"But," objected Miss Arminster, "we can't stay in the United States."

"Who said we could?" retorted the tramp. "Don't yer see, the cops'll
reckon on our takin' some train along hereabouts for the North, and
they'll watch all the little stations on the up line, but they won't
trouble 'bout the down line, 'cause they know we've left the city. So
all we has to do, after we've had our dinner comfortable-like, is to
take a local back to town, and catch the White Mountain Express for
Montreal."

"Why the White Mountain Express?" asked Mrs. Mackintosh.

"'Cause it's the longest route," replied the tramp, "an' they'll reckon
on our takin' the shortest. Besides which, we'll cross