redeeming collar showed above it. His manner
was singularly free from embarrassment when Chalmers rose from his
chair across the round dining table.

"If you will oblige me," said the host, "I will be glad to have your
company at dinner."

"My name is Plumer," said the highway guest, in harsh and aggressive
tones. "If you're like me, you like to know the name of the party
you're dining with."

"I was going on to say," continued Chalmers somewhat hastily, "that
mine is Chalmers. Will you sit opposite?"

Plumer, of the ruffled plumes, bent his knee for Phillips to slide
the chair beneath him. He had an air of having sat at attended
boards before. Phillips set out the anchovies and olives.

"Good!" barked Plumer; "going to be in courses, is it? All right,
my jovial ruler of Bagdad. I'm your Scheherezade all the way to the
toothpicks. You're the first Caliph with a genuine Oriental flavor
I've struck since frost. What luck! And I was forty-third in line. I
finished counting, just as your welcome emissary arrived to bid me
to the feast. I had about as much chance of getting a bed to-night
as I have of being the next President. How will you have the sad
story of my life, Mr. Al Raschid--a chapter with each course or the
whole edition with the cigars and coffee?"

"The situation does not seem a novel one to you," said Chalmers with
a smile.

"By the chin whiskers of the prophet--no!" answered the guest. "New
York's as full of cheap Haroun al Raschids as Bagdad is of fleas.
I've been held up for my story with a loaded meal pointed at my
head twenty times. Catch anybody in New York giving you something
for nothing! They spell curiosity and charity with the same set of
building blocks. Lots of 'em will stake you to a dime and chop-suey;
and a few of 'em will play Caliph to the tune of a top sirloin;
but every one of 'em will stand over you till they screw your
autobiography out of you with foot notes, appendix and unpublished
fragments. Oh, I know what to do when I see victuals coming toward
me in little old Bagdad-on-the-Subway. I strike the asphalt three
times with my forehead and get ready to spiel yarns for my supper.
I claim descent from the late Tommy Tucker, who was forced to hand
out vocal harmony for his pre-digested wheaterina and spoopju."

"I do not ask your story," said Chalmers. "I tell you frankly that
it was a sudden whim that prompted me to send for some stranger to
dine with me. I assure you you will