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There's nothing to fear; he doesn't know either of us.
If it is a face you have seen before; - if it is the one we are
expecting to see, pull your necktie straight. It's a little on one
side.
These rather startling injunctions were read by George, with no very
perceptible diminution of the uneasiness which it was only natural
for him to feel at the oddity of his position. But only the demand
last made produced any impression on him. The man they were waiting
for was no further up than the second floor, but instinctively
George's hand had flown to his necktie, and he was only stopped from
its premature re-arrangement by a warning look from Sweetwater.
"Not unless you know him," whispered the detective; and immediately
launched out into an easy talk about some totally different business
which George neither understood, nor was expected to, I dare say.
Suddenly the steps below paused, and George heard Sweetwater draw
in his breath in irrepressible dismay. But they were immediately
resumed, and presently the head and shoulders of a workingman
of uncommon proportions appeared in sight on the stairway.
George cast him a keen look, and his hand rose doubtfully to his
neck and then fell back again. The approaching man was tall, very
well-proportioned and easy of carriage; but the face - such of it
as could be seen between his cap and the high collar he had pulled
up about his ears, conveyed no exact impression to George's mind,
and he did not dare to give the signal Sweetwater expected from him.
Yet as the man went by with a dark and sidelong glance at them both,
he felt his hand rise again, though he did not complete the action,
much to his own disgust and to the evident disappointment of the
watchful detective.
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