“Signor Civita wished to speak to him.”
He braced himself up for an interview with some stranger, and in walked a foreigner wrapped in a long cloak, and looking exceedingly like a stage brigand.
He bowed, the brigand bowed too, and said something rapid and unintelligible in Italian. Then glanced at the door to see that it was safely closed, he made a bound to the open window and shut it noiselessly. Raeburn quietly reached down a loaded revolver which hung about the mantel piece, and cocked it, whereupon the brigand fell into a paroxysm of laughter, and exclaimed in German:
“Why, my good friend! Do you not know me?”
“Haeberlein!” exclaimed Raeburn, in utter amazement, submitting to a German embrace.
“Eric himself and no other!” returned the brigand. “Draw your curtains and lock your door and you shall see me in the flesh. I am half stifled in this lordly wig.”
“Wait,” said Raeburn. “Be cautious.”
He left him for a minute, and Haeberlein heard him giving orders that no one else was to be admitted that evening. Then he came back, quietly bolted the door, closed the shutters, and lighted the gas. In the meantime his friend threw off his cloak, removed the wig of long, dark hair, and the drooping mustache and shaggy eyebrows, revealing his natural face and form. Raeburn grasped his hand once more.
“Now I feel that I've got you, Eric!” he exclaimed. “What lucky chance has brought you so unexpectedly?”
“No lucky one!” said Haeberlein, with an expressive motion of the shoulders. “But of that anon; let me look at you, old fellow why you're as white as a miller! Call yourself six-and-forty! You might pass for my grandfather!”