ame and occupation, and all that. You see, I had just relieved the
company of a little money, and it hit me like a clap of thunder one day
that the idiot was you. But I couldn't be sure. And as long as I had to
get out very soon anyway, I concluded to go to Mohair and make certain,
and then pile things off on you if you happened to be the man.'"

At this point Marian and I were seized with laughter, in which the
Celebrity himself joined. Presently he continued:

"'So I went,' said Allen. 'I provided myself with two disguises, as
a careful man should, but by the time I reached that outlandish hole,
Asquith, the little thing I was mixed up in burst prematurely, and
the papers were full of it that morning. The whole place was out
with sticks, so to speak, hunting for you. They told me the published
description hit you to a dot, all except the scar, and they quarrelled
about that. I posed as the promoter of resort syndicates, and I hired
the Scimitar and sailed over to Bear Island; and I didn't have a bad
time that afternoon, only Cooke insisted on making remarks about my
whiskers, and I was in mortal fear lest he might accidentally pull one
off. He came cursed near it. By the way, he's the very deuce of a man,
isn't he? I knew he took me for a detective, so I played the part. And
in the night that ass of a state senator nearly gave me pneumonia by
getting me out in the air to tell me they had hid you in a cave. So I
sat up all night, and followed the relief party in the morning, and you
nearly disfigured me for life when you threw that bottle into the woods.
Then I went back to camp, and left so fast that I forgot my extra pair
of red whiskers. I had two of each disguise, you know, so I didn't miss
them.

"'I guess,' Mr. Allen went on, gleefully, 'that I got off about as
cleanly as any criminal ever did, thanks to you. If we'd fixed the thing
up between us it couldn't have been any neater, could it? Because I went
straight to Far Harbor and got you into a peck of trouble, right
away, and then slipped quietly into Canada, and put on the outfit of a
travelling salesman. And right here another bright idea struck me. Why
not carry the thing farther? I knew that you had advertised a trip to
Europe (why, the Lord only knows), so I went East and sailed for England
on the Canadian Line. And let me thank you for a little sport I had in
a quiet way as the author of The Sybarites. I think I astonished some of
your friends, old boy.