spotless linen at the beginning of their search, because of their persistency in going through every old box in the garret and storeroom, they left looking much like a brace of professional chimney-sweeps. They had gone through everything — had even thrown the laundry out of the clothes-bag and inspected the inside to make sure that I was not sticking to the bottom. Finally the chimneys were probed, until the sleuths had bespattered themselves—and everything else—with an ancient accumulation of soot, and not until the very walls of every room had been carefully sounded, were they satisfied to give it up as a bad job.
This letter was the first authentic information I had received that satisfied me the officers were really wanting me. though I suspected from newspaper reports that such was the case. However, I felt very much gratified to learn, as this letter indicated, that the officers were altogether off the scent.
On this second visit to Boston, I put up at the Thorndyke Hotel and continued to walk about the streets and visit the theaters, as I had been accustomed to doing in New York City, using a little more precaution, however, by way of disguise, having adopted the use of goggles, which enabled me to recognize familiar faces on the street without exciting comment.
During my two weeks' stay at the Thorndyke, I recognized two or three familiar faces from the Pacific Coast, so I concluded it would be safer to stop at some private boarding house, not so centrally located, where I would be less liable to detection. This I found in a private family on Massachusetts Avenue, opposite the Fenway branch postoffice, where I engaged board and room by the week. I was now located in the fashionable residence district about a mile and a half from the center of the city. After my week was up, the place having proved entirely satisfactory. I engaged room and board by the month, as I expected to remain some time, or until I could learn definitely how matters stood.
In the meantime, I received several letters from my wife, through C. C. Cravet, all of which had come through the General Delivery Department of the main or downtown postoffice; so after becoming located in my new quarters, I wrote and instructed him to address all mail in future to the Fenway branch postoffice, care General Delivery.
The first letter received at the new address was from Horace G. McKinley, dated at Shanghai, China, which he had forwarded to his wife with instructions to send to me. It contained little news of importance, further than to apprise me that he was in Shanghai, and that he was undecided about his future movements. He stated also that he had made arrangements with his cousin, Allie McKinley, of McAllister street, San Francisco, whereby myself and other friends might correspond with him in safety, and requested me to send my reply, and all future communications, to Allie, to be readdressed by him in China.
Horace spoke of his cousin as being thoroughly reliable and trustworthy and a person in whom I might place every confidence without reservation, and urged that I adopt this means of communicating with him. rather than to try to reach him through any other source.
While I had no reason to question Horace's opinion, or to believe that his confidence in Allie had been misplaced, at the same time, I had made my own arrangements as to how I should communicate with friends, so instead of following Horace's advice in making reply. I sent it direct to my friend C. C. Cravet, who delivered the letter in person to Mrs. Marie Ware McKinley, who was to forward it to her husband.
In Horace's second letter, received a few weeks after the first, he appeared anxious to learn if it were possible to adjust the difficulties into which he had recently become plunged, stating that in such event he would gladly return to the United States. Replying to this inquiry, I assured him that I was not in a position to give him the desired information, for although I had written to all the parties with whom he had dealings in school lands, I had not. at the time of writing." received answers to any of my letters.
Page 238
