“She’s a brick,” said Rossmore to the Major; “just her father all over:  prompt to labor with head or hands, and not ashamed of it; capable, always capable, let the enterprise be what it may; successful by nature—­ don’t know what defeat is; thus, intensely and practically American by inhaled nationalism, and at the same time intensely and aristocratically European by inherited nobility of blood.  Just me, exactly:  Mulberry Sellers in matter of finance and invention; after office hours, what do you find?  The same clothes, yes, but what’s in them?  Rossmore of the peerage.”

The two friends had haunted the general post-office daily.  At last they had their reward.  Toward evening the 20th of May, they got a letter for XYZ.  It bore the Washington postmark; the note itself was not dated.  It said: 

     “Ash barrel back of lamp post Black horse Alley.  If you are playing
     square go and set on it to-morrow morning 21st 10.22 not sooner not
     later wait till I come.”

The friends cogitated over the note profoundly.  Presently the earl said: 

“Don’t you reckon he’s afraid we are a sheriff with a requisition?”

“Why, m’lord?”

“Because that’s no place for a seance.  Nothing friendly, nothing sociable about it.  And at the same time, a body that wanted to know who was roosting on that ash-barrel without exposing himself by going near it, or seeming to be interested in it, could just stand on the street corner and take a glance down the alley and satisfy himself, don’t you see?”

“Yes, his idea is plain, now.  He seems to be a man that can’t be candid and straightforward.  He acts as if he thought we—­shucks, I wish he had come out like a man and told us what hotel he—­”

“Now you’ve struck it! you’ve struck it sure, Washington; he has told us.”

“Has he?”

“Yes, he has; but he didn’t mean to.  That alley is a lonesome little pocket that runs along one side of the New Gadsby.  That’s his hotel.”

“What makes’ you think that?”

“Why, I just know it.  He’s got a room that’s just across from that lamp post.  He’s going to sit there perfectly comfortable behind his shutters at 10.22 to-morrow, and when he sees us sitting on the ash-barrel, he’ll say to himself, ’I saw one of those fellows on the train’—­and then he’ll pack his satchel in half a minute and ship for the ends of the earth.”

Hawkins turned sick with disappointment: 

“Oh, dear, it’s all up, Colonel—­it’s exactly what he’ll do.”

“Indeed he won’t!”

“Won’t he?  Why?”

“Because you won’t be holding the ash barrel down, it’ll be me.  You’ll be coming in with an officer and a requisition in plain clothes—­the officer, I mean—­the minute you see him arrive and open up a talk with me.”

“Well, what a head you have got, Colonel Sellers!  I never should have thought of that in the world.”