I was too abstracted to
notice; I was engaged in eying Rudge.
"Do you know," said I, after an instant of what I meant should be
one of uncomfortable suspense on his part, "that I have a greater
respect than ever for that animal of yours since learning the very
good reason he has for refusing to cross the street?"
"Ha! what's that?" he asked, with a quick look behind him at the
watchful brute straining toward him with nose over the gutter.
"He sees farther than we can. His eyes penetrate walls and
partitions," I remarked. Then, carelessly and with the calm drawing
forth of a folded bit of paper which I held out toward him, I added:
"By the way, here is something of yours"
His hand rose instinctively to take it; then dropped.
"I don't know what you mean," he remarked. "You have nothing of
mine."
"No? Then John Judson Moore had another brother." And I thrust
the paper back into my pocket.
He followed it with his eye. It was the memorandum I had found in
the old book of memoirs plucked from the library shelf within, and
he recognized it for his and saw that I did also. But he failed
to show the white feather.
"You are good at ransacking," he observed; "pity that it can not
be done to more purpose."
I smiled and made a fresh start. With my hand thrust again into my
pocket, I remarked, without even so much as a glance at him:
"I fear that you do some injustice to the police.
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