Did he not stand on a better footing with his employer than this? He
was, I must suppose, trusted with the most secret and evil purposes of
that strange man, and should be able to speak with him on even terms.
Yet here he was, doing the work of the merest spy. What wickedness was
he planning? What treachery was he shaping in his designs on the man
whose bread he was eating and whose plans of crime he was the chief
agent to assist or execute?

I must have stood gaping in the street like a countryman at a fair as I
revolved these questions in my mind without getting an answer to them,
for I was roused by a man bumping into me roughly.

I suspected that he had done it on purpose, but I begged his pardon and
felt for my watch. I could find none of my personal property missing,
but I noticed the fellow reeling back toward me, and doubled my fist
with something of an intention to commit a breach of the peace if he
repeated his trick. I thought better of it, and started by him briskly,
when he spoke in a low tone:

"You'd better go to your room, Mr. Wilton." He said something more that
I did not catch, and, reeling on, disappeared in the crowd before I
could turn to mark or question him.

I thought at first that he meant the room I had just left. Then it
occurred to me that it was the room Henry had occupied--the room in
which I had spent my first dreadful night in San Francisco, and had not
revisited in the thirty hours since I had left it.

The advice suited my inclination, and in a few minutes I was entering
the dingy building and climbing the worn and creaking stairs. The place