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 of the man’s manner, he could not have combated one. And he did not know enough about the case to judge what possible connection this fellow might have with it. He was not even sufficiently conscious of his mental operations to ask himself whether he ought to leave his post at the Bridge to follow such a vague scent. He followed it as unreasoningly as an animal that is carried away by an instinct.

And once having abandoned himself to it, he was possessed by it to the exclusion of everything else. “Here, kid,” he said, hastily, aside, to the first newsboy that he met, “take my stock. I ’ll see you later”; and he gave up his papers to the gaping newsie as recklessly as he had given up his post. He went along Nassau Street, looking anywhere except at the panama hat and blue-serge shoulders that he followed; but he did not see anything except these; the rest was in his eyes, but not in his mind; and he had the large, idle, disinterested stare of an operative who is tailing.