He expectorated--scornfully this time. He was a man slow by nature
to receive ideas, but slower to rid himself of one that had
contrived to force its way into what he probably called his brain.
He had decided on the evidence that I was Smooth Sam Fisher, and
no denials on my part were going to shake his belief. He looked on
them merely as so many unsportsmanlike quibbles prompted by greed.

'Tell it to Sweeney!' was the form in which he crystallized his
scepticism.

'May be you'll say youse ain't trailin' de Nugget, huh?'

It was a home-thrust. If truth-telling has become a habit, one
gets slowly off the mark when the moment arrives for the prudent
lie. Quite against my will, I hesitated. Observant Mr MacGinnis
perceived my hesitation and expectorated triumphantly.

'Ah ghee!' he remarked. And then with a sudden return to ferocity,
'All right, you Sam, you wait! We'll fix you, and fix you good!
See? Dat goes. You t'ink youse kin put it across us, huh? All
right, you'll get yours. You wait!'

And with these words he slid off into the night. From somewhere in
the murky middle distance came a scornful 'Hawg!' and he was gone,
leaving me with a settled conviction that, while I had frequently
had occasion, since my expedition to Sanstead began, to describe
affairs as complex, their complexity had now reached its height.
With a watchful Pinkerton's man within, and a vengeful gang of
rivals without, Sanstead House seemed likely to become an