“I remember you as a boy,” declared the old, gray-haired lawyer. “You have changed greatly — according to my recollections. Ah, well — we all change.”
“You were a close friend of my uncle’s, were you not?”
Zachary Mitchell smiled cannily.
“Scarcely more than an acquaintance,” he said. “Yet in reality, his best friend.”
Bob Maddox seemed perplexed by this paradoxical statement. But he made no immediate reply.
“I have been quite anxious to meet you,” he said. “In fact, I have been waiting here quite a while.”
“You should have called me.”
“I did call — they said you would be back shortly.”
“Which meant a couple of hours,” smiled Mitchell. “Well, that is one of my peculiar traits. I have never valued time.
“But tell me, have you any special purpose in this visit, other than a friendly call?”