When I got back to the bottom of Liberty Street, I ensconced myself in
the shelter of a little group of trees which stood at one side of
the roadway. Just across the road, which ran at right angles to the
street, the wood began, and a quarter of an hour's walk through its
shades would bring us to the jetty where the boat lay. My trees made
a perfect screen, and here I stood awaiting events. For some time
nothing was audible but an ever-increasing tumult of joviality from
the Piazza. But after about twenty minutes I awoke to the fact that a
constant dribble of men, singly or in pairs, had begun to flow past me
from the Piazza, down Liberty Street, across the road behind me, and
into the wood. Some were in uniform, others dressed in common clothes;
one or two I recognized as members of Johnny Carr's missing band.
The strong contrast between the prevailing revelry and the stealthy,
cautious air of these passers-by would alone have suggested that they
were bent on business; putting two and two together I had not the
least doubt that they were the President's adherents making their way
down to the water's edge to receive their chief.
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