tion that
underneath it all there lay something more than a mere desire to be
either kindly or entertaining; in fact, that his geniality, though
outwardly spontaneous, was really a cloak to hide another side of his
nature--a fog into which he retreated--and that some day the real man
would be revealed.

I made no mention of my misgivings to any of my fellow-boarders. My
knowledge of men of his class--brilliant conversationalists with a
world-wide experience to draw upon--was slight, and my grounds for
doubting his sincerity were so devoid of proof that few persons would
have considered them anything but the product of a disordered mind.

And yet I still held to my opinion.

I had caught something, I fancied, that the others had missed. It
occurred one night after he had told a story and was waiting for the
laugh to subside. Soon a strange, weary expression crept over his
face--the same look that comes into the face of a clown who has been
hurt in a tumble and who, while wrestling with the pain, still keeps
his face a-grin. Suddenly, from out of his merry, smooth-shaven face,
there came a flash from his eyes so searching, so keen, so suspicious,
so entirely unlike the man we knew, so foreign to his mood at the
moment, that I instantly thought of the burglar peering through the
painted spectacles of the family portrait while he watched his
unconscious victim counting his gold.

This conviction so possessed me that I found myself for days after
peering into Bing's face, watching for its repetition--so much so that
the professor asked me with a laugh:

"Has Mr. Bing hypnotized you as badly as he has the ladies? They hang
on his every word. Curious study of the effect of mind on matter, isn't
it?"

The second time I caught the strange flash was BEFORE he had told his
story--when his admonitory glance--his polite way of compelling
attention--was sweeping the table. In its course his eyes rested for an
instant on mine, kindled with suspicion, and then there flashed from
their depths a light that seemed to illuminate every corner of my
brain. When I looked again his face was wreathed in smiles, his eyes
sparkling with merriment. Instantly my doubts returned with redoubled
force. What had he found in that instantaneous flash, I wondered? Had
he read my thoughts, or had he, from his place behind the painted
canvas, caught some expression on some victim's face which had roused
his fears?

Then a delightful thing happened