"It is so unprecedented, you know," he added apologetically.

The man at the Chief Office hemmed and hawed. "We make it a rule," he
explained, "to give no information concerning our clients."

"But in this case," I urged, "it is the client who requests you to give
the information concerning himself."

Again he hemmed and hawed.

"Of course," I hastily anticipated, "I know it is unprecedented, but--"

"As I was about to remark," he went on steadily, "it is unprecedented,
and I don't think we can do anything for you."

However, I departed with the address of a detective who lived in the East
End, and took my way to the American consul-general. And here, at last,
I found a man with whom I could "do business." There was no hemming and
hawing, no lifted brows, open incredulity, or blank amazement. In one
minute I explained myself and my project, which he accepted as a matter
of course. In the second minute he asked my age, height, and weight, and
looked me over. And in the third minute, as we shook hands at parting,
he said: "All right, Jack. I'll remember you and keep track."

I breathed a sigh of relief. Having burnt my ships behind me, I was now
free to plunge into that human wilderness of which nobody seemed to know
anything. But at once I encountered a new difficulty in the shape of my
cabby, a grey-whiskered and eminently decorous personage who had
imperturbably driven me for several hours about the "City."