"I wasn't quite sure whether I met you over there, Captain Blythe," he said, "but now I know that I didn't. I've been puzzling my brain for days trying to recall the name, or at least your face. I may be wrong, however. I haven't much of a memory. I hope you will forgive me if we did meet and I have forgotten it. I—"
"I have no recollection of ever having seen you, Mr. Thane," said Blythe. "It isn't surprising, however. It—it was a pretty big war, you know."
Charlie Webster was slightly dashed. If anything, Courtney Thane was more at ease, more convincing than Addison Blythe. He felt rather foolish. Something, it seemed, had fallen very flat. He evaded Mr. Hatch's eye.
"Sit down, Captain Blythe," said Courtney affably. "Hope you don't mind this bath gown. Charlie, make yourself at home on the bed,—you too, Hatch. We're as shy of chairs here as we were at the front, you see."
Blythe remained for half an hour and then went away with his two companions. Courtney shook hands with him and said good-bye at the hall door; then he strode over to the bureau to look at himself in the glass. He saw reflected therein a very well satisfied face, with brightly confident eyes and the suggestion of a triumphant smile.
Hatch accompanied the moody Mr. Webster to the warehouse office.
"Strikes me, Charlie," said he, thoughtfully, "that of the two our friend Courtney seems a long sight more genuine than this feller Blythe. I guess you're off your base, old boy. Why, darn it, he had Blythe up in the air half the time. If I was a betting man, I'd put up a hundred or two that Blythe never even saw the places they were talking about."
"Do you think Blythe is a fake?" cried Charlie in some heat.
"I wouldn't go so far as to say that," said Hatch diplomatically, "but you'll have to admit that Court asked him a lot of questions he didn't seem able to answer."
Charlie stared hard at the floor for a few seconds. Then: "Well, if I was to ask you what my mother's maiden name was, Tintype, you'd have to say you didn't know, wouldn't you?"