"Well, one night, Auguste, the headwaiter--you remember him, he used to
get smuggled cigarettes for us; that made him suspicious; always thought
everybody was a spy--pointed out a man sitting just outside the room on
one of the leather-covered seats. Auguste said he came every evening and
got as close as he could to our table without attracting attention;
close enough, however, to hear every word that was said. If I knew the
man it was all right; if I didn't know him, he suggested that I keep an
eye on him.
"I looked around, and saw a heavy-featured, dull-looking man about
twenty-five, dressed in a good suit of well-cut clothes, shiny
stove-pipe silk hat, high collar with a good deal of necktie, a big
pearl pin, and a long gold watch-chain which went all around his neck
like an eye-glass ribbon. He had a smooth-shaven face, two keen eyes, a
flat nose, square jaw, and a straight line of a mouth.
"I didn't know the man, didn't want to know him, fellows in silk hate
not being popular with us, and I didn't keep an eye on him except long
enough to satisfy myself that the man was only one of those hungry
travellers who was adding to his stock of information by picking up the
crumbs of conversation which fell from the tables, and not at all the
kind of a person who would hold me or anybody else up in a _sotto
portico_ or chuck me over a bridge.
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