In the dining-room, a few minutes later, a waiter was leaning over him, and asking, for the third time, "Tea or coffee, sir, an' how'll you have your eggs ?" when the inattentive guest suddenly caused him to jump as though galvanized, by bringing his fist down on the table with a crash, and exclaiming, "No, by the great hornspoon, it can't be that way either! What's that you say?
Oh yes, of course.

Coffee, soft-boiled, and as quick as you can." Having delivered this order, the young man fixed his intent gaze on a brown spot ornamenting the table-cloth, and resumed his thinking.
It had just occurred to him that, according to all accounts, the raft from which he had taken that skiff had come down the river to this point two days before.

So how could Winn Caspar, who had only escaped from the island a few minutes before he and Bim made good their own retreat, have reached the same place and joined that raft without attracting attention?
Both the day and night watchmen at the wharf-boat had assured him that no such boy as he described had been seen on the water-front.

They also said that the raft had been there all the day before, and that when it left it held only the three men who came with it.

"Of course he might have been inside the 'shanty' when I was aboard, though I can't see how he got there, nor why he should join a strange raft anyway," argued the young man.