Then again, I was twenty pounds
heavier than he was, and could take care of myself.
"Some nights after this I was dining alone, none of the boys having
shown up owing to a heavy rain, when Auguste nudged me, and there sat
this stranger within ten feet of my table. He dropped his eyes when he
saw me looking at him, and began turning the sheets of a letter he had
in his hand. I was smoking one of Auguste's cigarettes, and checking the
menu with a lead-pencil, when it slipped from my hand and rolled between
the man's feet. He rose, picked up the pencil, laid it beside my plate,
and without a word returned to his seat, that same curious, inquisitive,
hungry look on his face you saw a moment ago on that fellow's who has
just gone out. Auguste, of course, lost all interest in my dinner. If he
wasn't after me then he was after him; both meant trouble for Auguste.
"I shifted my chair, opened the 'Gazetta' to serve as a screen, and
looked the fellow over. If he were following me around to murder me, as
Auguste concluded--he always had some cock-and-bull story to tell--he
was certainly very polite about it.
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