'Hem!' said the editor. 'You took no notes whatever?'

'No, I did not. I had no time. I knew the moment they missed the
documents they would have the detectives on my track. As it was, I was
arrested when I entered the telegraph-office.'

'Well, it seems to me,' said the managing editor, 'if I had once had the
papers in my hand, I should not have let them go until I had got the gist
of what was in them.'

'Oh, it's all very well for you to say so,' replied the reporter, with
the free and easy manner in which an American newspaper man talks to his
employer; 'but I can tell you, with a Canadian gaol facing a man, it is
hard to decide what is best to do. I couldn't get out of the town for
three hours, and before the end of that time they would have had my
description in the hands of every policeman in the place. They knew well
enough who took the papers, so my only hope lay in getting the thing
telegraphed through; and if that had been accomplished, everything would
have been all right. I would have gone to gaol with pleasure if I had
got the particulars through to New York.'

'Well, what are we to do now?' asked the editor.

'I'm sure I don't know. The two men will be in New York very shortly.
They sail, I understand, on the _Caloric_, which leaves in a week. If you
think you have a reporter who can get the particulars out of these men, I
should be very pleased to see you set him on. I tell you it isn't so easy
to discover what an Englishman doesn't want you to know.'