And he breathes his name. Then he turns to me and gives me mine.
For a moment I am dumbfounded. Then I think of the entries we made at the inn in the Urserenthal, and then in a flash I have the truth. I rap the desk smartly with my finger-tips and shake my index-finger in my friend's face.
“By Jove!” I say in English. “They've got our doubles!”
The botanist snaps his fingers. “Of course! I didn't think of that.”
“Do you mind,” I say to this official, “telling us some more about ourselves?”
“I can't think why you keep it up,” he remarks, and then almost wearily tells me the facts about my Utopian self. They are a little difficult to understand. He says I am one of the samurai, which sounds Japanese, “but you will be degraded,” he says, with a gesture almost of despair. He describes my position in this world in phrases that convey very little.
“The queer thing,” he remarks, “is that you were in Norway only three days ago.”
“I am there still. At least—. I'm sorry to be so much trouble to you, but do you mind following up that last clue and inquiring if the person to whom the thumb-mark really belongs isn't in Norway still?”
The idea needs explanation. He says something incomprehensible about a pilgrimage. “Sooner or later,” I say, “you will have to believe there are two of us with the same thumb-mark. I won't trouble you with any apparent nonsense about other planets and so forth again. Here I am. If I was in Norway a few days ago, you ought to be able to trace my journey hither. And my friend?”
“He was in India.” The official is beginning to look perplexed.