"A fine old man to own a worthless son," he said at length, musingly. "A gentleman of the old school. Your amiable blackleg has education and good blood in him, too!"
"I've wondered sometimes," said Felder, "if the old Hugh Stires, that disreputable one that came here, wasn't the unreal one, and the Hugh Stires the town is beginning to like, the real one, brought back by the accident that took his memory. You medical men have cases of such double identity, haven't you?"
"The books have," responded the other, "but they're like Kellner's disease or Ludwig's Angina—nobody but the original discoverer ever sees 'em."
As they parted at the station the doctor said: "We needn't take the town into our confidence, eh? Some one will stumble on the statue sooner or later, but we won't help the thing along." He looked shrewdly in the other's face as they shook hands.
"You know the old saying: There's as many good fish in the sea as ever were caught."
The lawyer half laughed. "Don't worry," he said. "If I had been in danger, the signal was hung out in plenty of time!"