The Car Acquaintance

— or—

The Two Bits of Paper

by Mrs. Caroline Orne

 Several years ago, I entered a car at one of the New York stations, and took my place on the back scat. I looked at my watch, and found that it lacked fifteen or twenty minutes of the time to start. No one else was in the car, and unfolding a daily paper which I had just purchased of a newsboy, I commenced running my eye over its columns. The first thing that fixed my attention was the following paragraph:

“We understand that yesterday a young man employed as a clerk by Kendon & Browne in their extensive dry goods establishment, while on his way from Bank, where he had been to get a check for $2000 cashed, was knocked down and robbed of the whole amount. He was spoken to by a man when about midway of a dark alley, who inquired the way to Wall Street, and that is the last he remembers. The roan was of middling size, rather muscular, of grave demeanor, and well but plainly clad. The police are on the alert, and will, without doubt, succeed in capturing him.”

I had barely finished reading it, when a man entered the car and took a seat by an open window, directly forward of where I was sitting. He came in at the front part of the car, which gave me a good opportunity to observe him. At the moment of his entrance, I saw that he regarded me with a quick, furtive look, yet, at the same time, so keen and searching, that the thought flashed into my mind that he might belong to the detective police, and that the inquisitorial glance with which he honored me had something to do with the robbery, an account of which I had been reading.

He was rather small, and his features were of a type which is commonly called handsome. At times, however, there was a certain curve or rather twist of… Read More