“Falstaff, I think,” said Gilead.
The stranger looked at him with a slightly stimulated but still rueful curiosity.
“You are a reader,” he said; “you answer to your own description in other respects. Why do you call yourself George Barnwell?”
“Why not?” said Gilead stiffly.
“A common thief and highwayman?”
“I never thought of that,” said Gilead unguardedly.
“Didn’t you?” said the stranger languidly—“a pseudonym, as I thought, and not a very well-chosen one. Now, would you mind telling me—?”
“Assumed, I confess,” said Gilead.
“The guess was mine,” said the stranger. “Your clothes, your bearing—ah, well! You conceal something?”
“My name.”