Detective Bob Bridger — page 25: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

OS geese DETECTIVE BOB BRIDGER. Bridger saw or heard nothing more. He was asleep. Perceiving his condition, Fandon rested his hand beneath the hand that held the glass. ‘ Bobe,” said he, “ you seeeIlam Richard Hanford. You have the ‘ruffles’ on my wrists, and the company’s money in your possession. Now, what are you going to do with me ?” Without removing his stolid stare from the glass Bridger replied : “Well, Hanford, although you richly merit punishment, the officers of the company, out of regard for your heart- broken mother, have resolved to find you a situation else- where, and try you again.” The Scotch detective would have continued his experi- ment with the enforced sleeper further had not the vehicle at that moment pulled up in front of Millbank prison. As his eyes fell on the gloomy walls the errand that called him thither flashed vividly to his mind. Removing the glass with his left hand, he grasped Bridger’s hand with his right, and gave it a sudden jerk. “Ho, there, Bobe! Wake up!” he cried. Bridger started up wildly as if in terror, and, plunging suddenly forward, brought up against the front portion of the cab, dragging Fandon from his seat. “Wake up, Bobe, wake up!” shouted the Scotch detec- tive, wincing under the steel-like clasp of Bridger’s hand on his. “Oh, I see it all!” exclaimed Bridger, as the situation dawned with his returning faculties. Then dropping to a sitting posture on the cab’s front seat, he rubbed his eyes and smiled. “The glass was too much for you, Bobe. There’s no mis- take, you were either asleep—or mesmerized.” “I feel as if I had been.” *T made you believe I was Richard Hanford, ands you informed me what you proposed doing with me.” “Did, eh?” “ Have you no recollection of it?” “All that I recollect is, that when I awoke I was DOS- sessed of the idea that I was a garroter. My hands seemed ~ in pillory, my back bare, and I about to be flogged.” ‘Then here between ourselves, Bobe, we have another in- stance of the telegraphing of thought from brain to brain, for when I jerked your hand to wake you I was thinking enenily of a garroter whom I arrested a fortnight since, comicbooks.co