"Oh, I didn't want to catch it," said Lemuel.

"Ah, merely fond of exercise," said the stranger. "Well, it's a very
good thing, if you don't overdo it." He walked by, and then after a
glance at Lemuel over his shoulder, he returned to him. "May I ask
why you wanted to chase the car, if you didn't want to catch it?"

Lemuel hesitated; he did not like to confide in a total stranger;
this gentleman looked kind and friendly, but he was all the more
likely on that account to be a beat; the expression was probably
such as a beat would put on in approaching his intended prey. "Oh,
nothing," said Lemuel evasively.

"I beg your pardon," said the stranger, and he walked away with what
Lemuel could only conjecture was the air of a baffled beat.

He waited till he was safely out of sight, and then followed on down
the street towards his hotel. When he reached it he walked boldly up
to the clerk's desk, and said that he guessed he would take a room
for the night, and gave him the check for his bag that he had
received in leaving it there.

The clerk wrote the number of a room against Lemuel's name in the
register, and then glanced at the bag. It was a large bag of oil-
cloth, a kind of bag which is by nature lank and hollow, and must be
made almost insupportably heavy before it shows any signs of
repletion. The shirt and pair of everyday pantaloons which Lemuel
had dropped that morning into its voracious maw made no apparent
effect there, as the clerk held it up and twirled it on the crook of
his thumb.