“The piper’s son, you know,” Richard explained. “He stole a pig,” he added instructively.
“To be sure. To be sure,” Mrs. Wells admitted. “How stupid of me.” But her intent eye showed that her mind was still on the mystery. “There is no Mr. Richard Richard on the steamer-list. I am sure I should have noticed it.”
“No,” Richard answered slowly. “No-o. It wouldn’t be. I came in late at Genoa. Didn’t make reservations. Knew there’d be plenty of room in July; all the rush the other way, you know. So they didn’t get my name in time to print.”
Richard seemed to be enjoying the game. Every now and then he would look towards Geraldine for approval, but she gave him only a calm wide-eyed survey.
With cap drawn down almost over his eyes, Walter, stretched out in his chair, was observing the group with ferret-like eagerness. He knew a thing or two! They were not pulling the wool over his eyes. And he would show them, too; but in his own time.
The mother was not satisfied. “It sounds plausible,” she admitted grudgingly. “Although how any sane person would name a child Richard Richard——” She interrupted herself to gaze firmly into his honest, genial face. The absence of all guile assured her. Besides, here was a man who really knew mental phenomena, had taken courses under James and Münsterberg; had some hypnotic abilities himself; was familiar with what was to her an unknown region, Kant and Hegel; a man, in other words, who had the right attitude towards Mind. Yes; he was all right.
Then a horrid doubt assailed her, for she remembered vividly that Geraldine had said to White Trousers, “This is Jerry.” An hour or two of strolling about Naples would not bring them to first names.
“But,” she began, and stopped.
“Wait, Mrs. Wells,” Richard sat up. “Do not speak. I am about to try a bit of mind-reading. You are wondering why your daughter should have called me Richard——”
“And why she should have presumed you would know her as Jerry.”