Had Hewitt not been there I think I should have done my best to quiet the poor fellow with a few soothing words and to persuade him to go home to his friends.  His excited and rather confused manner, his fantastic story of a sort of general conspiracy to kill him, and the absurd reference to the doctor who tried to pick his pocket seemed to me plainly to confirm my first impression that he was insane.  But Hewitt appeared strangely interested.

“Did they steal anything?” he asked.

“Divil a shtick but me door-key, an’ that they tuk home an’ lift in the door.”

Hewitt opened his office door.

“Come in,” he said, “and tell me all about this.  You come, too, Brett.”

The Irishman and I followed him into the inner office, where, shutting the door, Hewitt suddenly turned on the Irishman and exclaimed sharply:  “Then you’ve still got it?”

He looked keenly in the man’s eyes, but the only expression there was one of surprise.

“Got ut?” said the Irishman.  “Got fwhat, sor?  Is ut you’re thinkin’ I’ve got the horrors, as well as the polis?”

Hewitt’s gaze relaxed.  “Sit down, sit down!” he said.  “You’ve still got your watch and money, I suppose, since you weren’t robbed?”

“Oh, that?  Glory be, I have ut still! though for how long—­or me own head, for that matter—­in this state of besiegement, I can not say.”

“Now,” said Hewitt, “I want a full, true, and particular account of yourself and your doings for the last week.  First, your name?”

“Leamy’s my name, sor—­Michael Leamy.”

“Lately from Ireland?”

“Over from Dublin this last blessed Wednesday, and a crooil bad poundherin’ tit was in the boat, too—­shpakin’av that same.”

“Looking for work?”

“That is my purshuit at prisint, sor.”

“Did anything noticeable happen before these troubles of yours began—­anything here in London or on the journey?”

“Sure,” the Irishman smiled, “part av the way I thraveled first-class by favor av the gyard, an’ I got a small job before I lift the train.”

“How was that?  Why did you travel first-class part of the way?”

“There was a station fwhere we shtopped afther a long run, an’ I got down to take the cramp out av me joints, an’ take a taste av dhrink.  I over-shtayed somehow, an’, whin I got to the train, begob, it was on the move.  There was a first-class carr’ge door opin right forninst me, an’ into that the gyard crams me holus-bolus.  There was a juce of a foine jintleman sittin’ there, an’ he stares at me umbrageous, but I was not dishcommoded, bein’ onbashful by natur’.  We thravelled along a heap av miles more, till we came near London.  Afther we had shtopped at a station where they tuk tickets we wint ahead again, an’ prisintly, as we rips through some udther station, up jumps the jintleman opposite, swearin’ hard undher his tongue, an’ looks out at the windy.  ’I thought this train shtopped here,’ sez he.”