Entirely unconscious, however, of what was in store for me, I entered the well-fitted saloon of the hotel, and patiently waited my turn to submit myself to the deft fingers of the knight of the razor.
In response to the universal and well-understood call of "next!" I took my seat in the luxuriously upholstered chair, and in a few minutes my face was covered with the foamy lather applied by the dapper little German into whose hands I had fallen.
I noticed when I sat down that the man wore a puzzled and speculative look, as though he was struggling with some vexing lapse of memory, and as he drew the keen edge of the razor across my face, his eyes were fixed intensely upon my features. His manner annoyed me considerably, and I was at a loss to account for his strange demeanor. Whatever ideas I may have entertained with regard to this singular action were, however, soon set at rest, only to give place to a feeling of unrestful anger.
He had just cleared one side of my face of its stubby growth of hair, when a smile irradiated his face, and with a look of self-satisfied recognition and pride, he addressed me:
"Vy, how do you do, Mr. Bingerdon?"
Had a thunderbolt fallen at my feet I could not have been more perfectly amazed, and for a moment I could scarcely tell whether I was afoot or on horseback. I devoutly wished that I was anywhere than with this Dutch barber, whose memory was so uncomfortably retentive.
I had been too accustomed to sudden surprises, however, to lose my self-control, and I replied to him, with an unmoved face and as stern a voice as I could command:
"I am not Mr. Bingerdon, and I don't know the man."
"Oh yes, your name is Bingerdon, and you leev in Geecago."
The face of the German was so good-natured, and he appeared quite delighted at recognizing me, but for myself I was feeling very uncomfortable indeed. I did not know the man, nor what he knew of me. I knew, however, that he was perfectly right about my identity, and I knew also that it would be very dangerous for his knowledge to become general.