nry Roberts, forwarding merchant, of Wheeling, Pennsylvania?
Pray, now, if you use the advertisement of business cards, and happen to
have one with you, just look at it, and see whether you are not the man
I take you for."

"Why," a bit chafed, perhaps, "I hope I know myself."

"And yet self-knowledge is thought by some not so easy. Who knows, my
dear sir, but for a time you may have taken yourself for somebody else?
Stranger things have happened."

The good merchant stared.

"To come to particulars, my dear sir, I met you, now some six years
back, at Brade Brothers & Co's office, I think. I was traveling for a
Philadelphia house. The senior Brade introduced us, you remember; some
business-chat followed, then you forced me home with you to a family
tea, and a family time we had. Have you forgotten about the urn, and
what I said about Werter's Charlotte, and the bread and butter, and that
capital story you told of the large loaf. A hundred times since, I have
laughed over it. At least you must recall my name--Ringman, John
Ringman."

"Large loaf? Invited you to tea? Ringman? Ringman? Ring? Ring?"

"Ah sir," sadly smiling, "don't ring the changes that way. I see you
have a faithless memory, Mr. Roberts. But trust in the faithfulness of
mine."

"Well, to tell the truth, in some things my memory aint of the very
best," was the honest rejoinder. "But still," he perplexedly added,
"still I----"

"Oh sir, suffice it that it is as I say. Doubt not that we are all well
acquainted."

"But--but I don't like this going dead against my own memory; I----"

"But didn't you admit, my dear sir, that in some things this memory of
yours is a little faithless? Now, those who have faithless memories,
should they not have some little confidence in the less faithless
memories of others?"

"But, of this friendly chat and tea, I have not the slightest----"

"I see, I see; quite erased from the tablet. Pray, sir," with a sudden
illumination, "about six years back, did it happen to you to receive any
injury on the head? Surprising effects have arisen from such a cause.
Not alone unconsciousness as to events for a greater or less time
immediately subsequent to the injury, but likewise--strange to
add--oblivion, entire and incurable, as to events embracing a longer or
shorter period immediately preceding it; that is, when the mind at the
time was perfectly sensible of them, and fully competent also to
register them in the memory, an