my very good friend Farnham. But you
evidently wish me to see that you still firmly believe I
am--er--mistaken. Am I not stating the case correctly? But it is
certainly far from flattering to me that you should have almost
completely forgotten me, to say the least."

"I shall remember you again, sooner or later," I murmured.

"I sincerely hope so, if in any way we have come across each other in
the past, unknown to me. But I have been so well acquainted with you by
reputation for some years, Mr. Stanton, that I would be ready to swear
my memory could not have played me false."

I did not reply, save by a slight upward movement of the eyebrows, but I
was conscious that he was gazing at me intently.

"You do not like me," he remarked presently, in the same low, monotonous
tone of voice which we had employed so far throughout our disjointed
conversation.

It was my turn to shrug my shoulders. "I should not be apt to select you
as a friend."

"I wonder"--very slowly and lazily--"whether it be possible that I can
in any way, quite inadvertently, _have interfered with your
plans_?"

"Rather say," I broke out imprudently, "that it is possible _I_ may
interfere with yours!"

He laughed. "I wonder how?"

"In no definite way, unless--I should happen suddenly to remember
exactly where and how I have met you before. That little accident might
slightly hamper your career in general for the future perhaps."

"You are pleased to be insulting. And yet, somehow, I don't want to take
offence from you. I would much prefer to argue you out of your somewhat
unreasonable prejudice and mistake. Do you suggest, for instance, that I
am now concealing my identity under a disguise?"

So speaking he raised his hand with a pretence at carelessness, pushing
his dark hair from his forehead in such a way as to assure me without
doubt that he did not wear a wig.

"The moustache--allow me to give you an ocular demonstration--is equally
genuine," he sneered. "I don't sport a false nose, or I should have
procured myself a more desirable one, and my teeth"--with a disagreeable
grin--"are my own. Have I convinced you that I have not tampered with
Nature's handiwork, such as it is?"

"You might have waited, Mr. Wildred," I returned, "until I had accused
you of doing so before trying to prove the contrary. You know the
saying, 'He who excuses, accuses himself,' I suppose?"

"I have heard it, though fortunately it does not concern the case. L