"Colonel Clay!" he shouted, aloud.
"And once more he's done me. There's not a moment to lose. After
him, gentlemen! after him!"
Never before in our lives had we had such a close shave of catching
and fixing the redoubtable swindler. We burst down the stairs in a
body, and rushed out into Fifth Avenue. The pretended poet had only
a hundred yards' start of us, and he saw he was discovered. But he
was an excellent runner. So was I, weight for age; and I dashed
wildly after him. He turned round a corner; it proved to lead
nowhere, and lost him time. He darted back again, madly. Delighted
with the idea that I was capturing so famous a criminal, I redoubled
my efforts--and came up with him, panting. He was wearing a light
dust-coat. I seized it in my hands. "I've got you at last!" I cried;
"Colonel Clay, I've got you!"
He turned and looked at me. "Ha, old Ten Per Cent!" he called out,
struggling. "It's you, then, is it? Never, never to _you_, sir!" And
as he spoke, he somehow flung his arms straight out behind him, and
let the dust-coat slip off, which it easily did, the sleeves being
new and smoothly silk-lined. The suddenness of the movement threw
me completely off my guard, and off my legs as well. I was clinging
to the coat and holding him. As the support gave way I rolled over
backward, in the mud of the street, and hurt my back seriously.
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