He was quite right. There, at a few yards' distance, was Mr. Abraham Driver, merchant, dealer, and chapman, late of Liverpool, an absconded bankrupt.
He was walking coolly down to the quay, smoking his cigar, and about to take his departure in the vessel we had noticed.
At a suggestion from Boggy, the sergeant arrested the English bankrupt. The creditor and the debtor exchanged a very few words, not of mutual compliment.
"I guess you've made a grand mistake, my good gentleman," said Mr. Driver, with a strong nasal accent (which had never been remarked in Liverpool), as if anxious to supply the evidence of his nationality, and save the trouble of being asked for it.
Up to this moment neither the creditor nor I had any idea that he was not an Englishman and a subject of the Queen's.
"What do you mean, sir?" asked the sergeant of gendarmes, in tolerably good English.
"Why, I guess you know that I am an American citizen; and mind now, I warn, you, sir, not to annoy me for the delight of those confounded Britishers."
"He is an English bankrupt subject, to the jurisdiction of our laws, and a felon," I observed.
"I calculate that's very tall talk, all that, and when you catch me back in that old country of yours you may be all right, I dare say; but I tell you, sir, that if you keep me here till after that ship's gone, you'll have a very pretty penny to pay, that you will, I reckon."
"You must come with us to the _maire_," the sergeant said.
"Oh, I guess if you say I must, that I must; but here--look--here is my passport. It's all fair and square, you see. Now, mind what you do to an American citizen--that's all I tell you now."
"Now, I guess," he continued, "that you'll take me first to the consulate of the United States, won't you?"
He looked round wistfully, and took out a ten-franc piece from his pocket.
"Who is there will go to the consul of the United States, and tell him that an American citizen wants his protection. Ask him to come to the _maire_ before that steam-ship there can go away."
"Here, I don't mind doing that. An Englishman in trouble would like to have his consul's advice. That's only right."
Away Boggy ran to fetch the guardian of the stars and stripes, as cheerfully as he had devoted himself to Mr. Driver's discovery.