The detective started, George started, at the gleam which answered him from a very uncommon eye.  It was a temporary flash, however, and quickly veiled, and the tone in which this Dunn now spoke was anything but an encouraging one.

“I thought you were desirous of joining a socialistic fraternity,” said he; “a true aspirant for such honours don’t care for beautiful things unless all can have them.  I prefer my tenement.  How is it with you, friends?”

Sweetwater found some sort of a reply, though the thing which this man now did must have startled him, as it certainly did George.  They were so grouped that a table quite full of anomalous objects stood at the back of their host, and consequently quite beyond their own reach.  As Sweetwater began to speak, he whom he had addressed by the name of Dunn, drew a pistol from his breast pocket and laid it down barrel towards them on this table top.  Then he looked up courteously enough, and listened till Sweetwater was done.  A very handsome man, but one not to be trifled with in the slightest degree.  Both recognised this fact, and George, for one, began to edge towards the door.

“Now I feel easier,” remarked the giant, swelling out his chest.  He was unusually tall, as well as unusually muscular.  “I never like to carry arms; but sometimes it is unavoidable.  Damn it, what hands!” He was looking at his own, which certainly showed soil.  “Will you pardon me?” he pleasantly apologised, stepping towards a washstand and plunging his hands into the basin.  “I cannot think with dirt on me like that.  Humph, hey! did you speak?”

He turned quickly on George who had certainly uttered an ejaculation, but receiving no reply, went on with his task, completing it with a care and a disregard of their presence which showed him up in still another light.

But even his hardihood showed shock, when, upon turning round with a brisk, “Now I’m ready to talk,” he encountered again the clear eye of Sweetwater.  For, in the person of this none too welcome intruder, he saw a very different man from the one upon whom he had just turned his back with so little ceremony; and there appeared to be no good reason for the change.  He had not noted in his preoccupation, how George, at sight of his stooping figure, had made a sudden significant movement, and if he had, the pulling of a necktie straight, would have meant nothing to him.  But to Sweetwater it meant every thing, and it was in the tone of one fully at ease with himself that he now dryly remarked:  “Mr. Brotherson, if you feel quite clean; and if you have sufficiently warmed yourself, I would suggest that we start out at once, unless you prefer to have me share this room with you till the morning.”