“One of us is being shadowed. Is it you or me?”
“Me,” he said. “As long as you stay with me, I am safe. Let us slip into this place....”
He pushed open the swing door of a wine shop, and we went inside. He ordered a bottle of cheap wine, and before it had been brought, three men entered and sat near the door.
My strange acquaintance sipped a little wine, spoke to me loudly in English about the weather, and whispered the words, “Follow me quickly!”
He rose from the table, and went rapidly out of the back door of the restaurant into the courtyard, and out through a side door into the street by which we had entered. It was dark, but as we walked we saw, at the end of the street, under a lantern, three men standing motionless.
He plunged into a narrow alley, and then through a labyrinth of little streets until suddenly we emerged on the square opposite our hotel.
“How’s that for geographical knowledge?” he asked.
“Good!” I said. “But after this I do not desire your company. I don’t understand why these men followed you, and I don’t like the game, anyhow.”
He regretted my annoyance, and was so polite and amusing that I relented toward him, especially as he told me he was going to Vigo next day.
He wished me good-by that night when he went to bed. But next morning when I left Lisbon for Oporto, he was on the platform, and said that he had changed his plans and was going to the same place as myself.
I was now convinced that he was really shadowing me, and told him so. But he shook his head and laughed.
“Nothing of the kind. I like your company, because you’re the only Englishman in this land of dagoes. Also I want you to get me that handful of pebbles.”
He returned again to the subject of those ridiculous pebbles. I could get them easily for him on the seashore by Oporto. It would give me very little trouble. It would be an enormous favor to him.... I refused to consider the idea.
In Oporto he took me into a jeweler’s shop and bought a little cedarwood box about five inches square.
“I want enough pebbles to fill this box,” he said. “Surely you can get them for me?”
“Surely you can get them yourself,” I answered.
But he shook his head, and said that was impossible.
We were again followed down the streets of Oporto. My companion drew my attention to the fact, and then sidestepped into an umbrella shop. But he did not buy an umbrella. He bought a very neat, and rather expensive, sword stick, and offered to give me another like it.