etired a few
paces, observing in a mild explanatory tone something about spots on his
garments and the necessity for having them removed at a certain little
Greek shop, before doing himself the honor of calling and--

"You're another answer to the advertisement then, I suppose?" the
lady's voice unceremoniously interrupted.

He confessed himself Another Answer, and in that capacity proceeded now
to reply as best he might to a merciless and rapid fire of questions.
She would have made an excellent cross-examiner for the prosecution; Mr.
Heatherbloom did not seem to enjoy the grilling. A number of queries
he answered frankly; others he evaded. He seemed--ominous
circumstance!--especially secretive regarding certain details of his
past. He did not care to say where he was born, or who his parents were.
What had he done? What occupations had he followed?

Well--he seemed to hesitate a good deal--he had once tried washing
dishes; but--dreamily--they had discharged him; the man said something
about there being a debit balance on account of damaged crockery. He had
essayed the role of waiter but had lasted only through the first
courses; down to the entrees, he thought; certainly not much past the
pottage. He believed he bumped into another waiter; a few guests within
range had seemed put out; afterward, he himself was put out. And
then--well, he had somehow drifted, more or less.

"Drifted!" said the lady ominously.

"Oh, yes! Tried his hand at this and that," he added rather blithely. He
once worked for a moving-picture firm; fell from a six-story window for
them. That is, he started to fall; something--a net or a platform--was
supposed to catch him at the fifth, and then a dummy completed the
descent and got smashed on the sidewalk. He was a little doubtful about
their intercepting him at the fifth and that he, instead of the
dummy--But he didn't seem to mind taking the risk--reflectively. They
said he was a great success falling through the air, and they had him,
in consequence, fall from all kinds of places,--through drawbridges into
the water, for example. That's where he contracted a bad cold, and when
he had recovered, another man had been found for the heavier-than-air
role--

"What are you talking about?" The lady's back was stiffer than a poker.

"If ever you go to a moving-picture palace of amusement, Madam, and see
a streak in the air, you might reasonably conclude you are"--he
bowed--"beholding me. I went