best, and he handed me a twenty-dollar bill for my information. ‘There’s ten times that for you,’ said he, ‘if you can find me all that I want.’ ”
“What did you tell him, then?”
“Any stuff I could make up.”
“How do you know he wasn’t a newspaper man?”
“I’ll tell you. He got out at Hobson’s Patch, and so did I. I chanced into the telegraph bureau, and he was leaving it.
“ ‘See here,’ said the operator after he’d gone out, ‘I guess we should charge double rates for this.’—‘I guess you should,’ said I. He had filled the form with stuff that might have been Chinese, for all we could make of it. ‘He fires a sheet of this off every day,’ said the clerk. ‘Yes,’ said I; ‘it’s special news for his paper, and he’s scared that the others should tap it.’ That was what the operator thought and what I thought at the time; but I think differently now.”
“By Gar! I believe you are right,” said McGinty. “But what do you allow that we should do about it?”
“Why not go right down now and fix him?” someone suggested.
“Ay, the sooner the better.”
“I’d start this next minute if I knew where we could find him,” said McMurdo. “He’s in Hobson’s Patch; but I don’t know the house. I’ve got a plan, though, if you’ll only take my advice.”
“Well, what is it?”
“I’ll go to the Patch tomorrow morning. I’ll find him through the operator. He can locate him, I guess. Well, then I’ll tell him that I’m a