keyed up for tragedy, and the way Sadler acted as if he wasn't going
to escape real mysterious. For the Mayor had to please the British
consul and Ferdinand Street and the Transport Company; but the
Hottentots were skittish, and the Mayor was nervous.

On Thursday morning the dock was crowded with Sadler's friends, come
to watch him escape, and some who heard he was to try it, and thought
to see him grabbed by the City Guard. They expected a surprise. It
puzzled them when the strip of water widened between the steamer and
the pier.

Irish wasn't there, though I had supposed he would go with Sadler;
but the British and American consuls were there, and Dorcas, with
others of the Transport Company, people from the Hotel Republic, and
Hillary, and a lot of negroes from Ferdinand Street. I heard the
British consul say to the American consul: "You know, of course,
that's what you call a 'put up job'--one of your Americanisms," he
says.

"Shucks! You don't care," says the American consul.

"But really, you know, it's not decent," says the British consul.

Sadler stood on the after deck of the steamer with his hat off, same
as if he was asking a benediction on Portate.

An hour later the steamer was out of sight and the proclamations
were posted in Ferdinand Street, and the Plaza, and at the
consulates: "Three hundred dollars reward for the capture and return,
dead or alive, of one known as 'Kid Sadler,' a fugitive from public