It was the morning after the Anarchist Club had been raided by the
police. I was sitting up in my bed, reading the graphic account of the
occurrence in the morning paper, when the door opened and Stromboli
himself burst into my bed-chamber.
"Hullo!" I ejaculated. "So you have found bail! I was rather expecting
that you would come to me for it!"
"I should have," was the reply, "if I had needed it."
"You did not need it? You mean that you managed to escape?"
"Precisely. Do I not know the tramp of a policeman when I hear it? Are
not his boots made so that all the world shall know it?"
"Ah! then----"
"I was wise in time. Leaping on to a table, I shouted to my friends:
'We are discovered. This way for the back door. Follow me, and I will
lead you to a place of safety.' Then I fled, and, as you see, I reached
a place of safety. But alas! I reached it alone. The others, my
followers, were caught. I weep for them."
"It is unnecessary," I explained. "The English law is lenient in these
matters. A small fine will see them through their troubles."
My words failed to produce the comforting effect which I intended.
"If only I had known that!" Stromboli answered, and hung his head
dejectedly.
"Yes? In that case?" I asked.
"In that case," he answered, "I should not have been in so great a
hurry; and if I had not been in so great a hurry, I should not have left
my purse on the piano."
"You did that?"
"I did that, having just taken it from my pocket for the purpose of
paying for some refreshments. It contained the money which I had set
aside for the satisfaction of the claims of my more pressing creditors.
I shall have sleepless nights in consequence."
"So, I dare say, will they," I interposed; and the remark seemed to
exhibit the situation to Stromboli in a light in which he had never
previously looked at it.
"You really think so?" he answered sympathetically. "Then I am indeed
distressed for them. I should have remembered that creditors as well as
debtors might have their pecuniary embarrassments. If I could be of any
service to them--if, for example, by telling another story----"
"Then you still know other stories?"