Suddenly I drew a trip to Florida. I was to attach myself to the United States' Court as an ostensible necessity, for the purpose of learning what the Boche were doing toward helping themselves to our cotton, copper and crude rubber in the Gulf by means of undersea cargo carriers, and also, if they were trying to cash in on their mortgage on Mexico.
One morning the judge, hard-headed and practical, called me into his chambers and gave me two warrants to produce dead or alive the body of a certain man in court to answer charges of smuggling tobacco from Cuba, and violating our neutrality. He said the "Paper case," which meant the affidavits, upon which the warrants were based, were altogether regular, but there was a distinctive odor about them that indicated "a nigger in the woodpile." And that meant that if I went slow, it was believed that I would find out something worth while.
The clerk and myself studied elementary geography for a while, and found that the best we could do was to locate the defendant by longitude and latitude, either on the barren Keys, or on one of the numerous islands nearby. The affidavits appeared to be made by members of the firm of Bulow and Company, in Key West, and thither I went at once.
Bulow and Company were big handlers, wholesale and retail, of heavy hardware, ship chandlery, and spongefishers' supplies. They had a few sponge boats themselves, deep-sea vessels, also docks and tugs. I saw nothing to justify the honorable judge's angle on the case, but took his advice and went slow.
At the hotel in Key West I met Ike Barry, a traveling man in just such a line.
"Been selling the Bulow people for twenty-five years," he informed me. "Always discount. The manager is director in the People's National. The Bulows were German--all dead now. Will take you down and introduce you to present managers--fine people. No--well, I'm going to be here a week or two fishing--see me if I can make you happy--I know what Key West has for breakfast."
I was making no progress in getting a line on the man Canby charged in the warrants. Finally I changed clothes and went down to the waterfront looking for a job as marine engineer, or anything in that line. It may have been an accident that I got on the Bulow wharf first with my license, membership card, and enough letters to convince even a doubting Thomas that I was fit and willing.