Then Curtis bethought him of looking at his watch, and was astonished to find that the hour was half-past two o'clock.
"By Jove!" he cried.

"We must have consumed fully half an hour over that trip.

I wonder whether your man has waited, Devar; or would he give us up as lost, and go home ?" "What! Arthur return alone, and tell my aunt that the last he saw of me I was adrift on the Hudson River in a barge with a policeman and a swashbuckler from Pekin?
Not much!" "I hope you are right, sir," said McCulloch.

"Even when we reach New York I must trouble you two gentlemen to come to the station-house and report the whole affair, as I was due there an hour ago, and the entire precinct will have been scoured for news of me by this time." Devar laughed loudly.
"I don't want to alarm you, McCulloch--not that you are of the neurotic habit, judging by the way you took a chance of having a hole bored through you while searching that blessed barge--but if you believe you can frame a cut-and-dried programme during the time you have retained John D.Curtis's services as guide, philosopher, and friend, you are hugging a delusion.

I started out from a happy home last evening intending to pick up a friendless stranger and show him the orthodox sights of New York.