“Really,” he said, coldly, “I—I don’t remember ever having——”
“Of course, of course,” Grey interrupted, not without some embarrassment, “I can quite understand that you shouldn’t recognise me. You see, I—well, I’m Carey Grey.”
Mr. Frothingham’s demeanour showed no change.
“Carey Grey,” he repeated, icily; “I used to know a Carey Grey in New York, a member of the Knickerbocker and the Union; but he was nearly as dark as I am, and besides—why, he’s dead.”
“If you don’t mind sitting down a bit,” Grey went on, as he staggered under the news of his own demise, “I’ll try to explain. I’m Carey Grey, just the same—the Carey Grey, of the Knickerbocker and the Union, and I’m not dead.”
Frothingham recognised his voice now, and mystification routed suspicion from the field. He took a chair and Grey sat down, too, with the marble-topped table between them.
“First and foremost,” Grey began, “tell me what day of the month it is.”
“Of what?”
“Of June, of course.”