"Trust to me," said the "'tec," "interfere with no one, and keep your pencil and your notebook in your pocket till I tell you. Keep your mouth shut and your ears and eyes open, and as they say in the pantomime, 'you shall see what you shall see.'"
We were soon whizzing along the elevated railway, and I was trying to impress my guide with stirring tales of midnight meanderings in the greater city, London. I left out any mention of Dublin, for my companion rejoiced in a truly Milesian cognomen, and still bore strong evidence of his native country in his accent, mixed with a good dash of American.
"Guess you're a pretty 'cute Britisher, and shure it's the likes of you I'm mighty glad to strike in this _tre_menjious city!"
I felt somewhat flattered by this encouraging condescension, and I admit now that I did not feel particularly happy at the idea of bearding the thieving lion, with his hyena-like satellites, in his den. I felt something like a criminal under arrest myself, and I am sure that everyone in the car must have thought that the world-famed detective force of New York had added another notorious catch to the many they have so cleverly made.
As we passed close to the windows of the houses, and actually looked into the rooms on the second and third stories, Detective Jonathan H. O'Flaherty would point out to me a room here and there which was being watched by his comrades, and as we approached nearer and nearer to the purlieus of the poor, he positively detected seated in rooms in shady hotels which harboured thieves a forger, a housebreaker, and other notabilities of a worse character. Indeed, I would not have been surprised had the arm of the law been literally stretched out at any moment, and one of these gentlemen transferred from his seat through the window and deposited by my side in the carriage.
America is a free country. England, we are assured, is not; but the fact that the police are allowed to arrest anybody they please without showing any authority whatever is a curious contradiction which the Britisher may be pardoned for smiling at.
Detective Jonathan H. O'Flaherty and I had a rather warm argument upon this point, and I must say that in the end I had to admit that there was a good deal to be said in favour of the utter want of liberty to which Americans have to submit.