It was just a few minutes before six o'clock when, walking slowly, they passed a great office building. Coming toward them was a well-dressed, active man of thirty-five years or so. As he approached he removed a cigar from his lips.
"Hello, Harry!" he exclaimed, and reached for Doane's hand.
"Hello," said Doane, but there was no trace of recognition in his voice.
"How's Pittsburg?" asked the stranger.
"Oh, all right, I guess," said Doane, and there came new wrinkles of perplexity in his brow. "Allow me, Mr.--Mr.--really I have forgotten your name----"
"Manning," laughed the other.
"Mr. Hatch, Mr. Manning."
The reporter shook hands with Manning eagerly; he saw now a new line of possibilities suddenly revealed. Here was a man who knew Doane as Harry--and then Pittsburg, too.
"Last time I saw you was in Pittsburg, wasn't it?" Manning rattled on, as he led the way into a nearby cafe. "By George, that was a stiff game that night! Remember that jack full I held? It cost me nineteen hundred dollars," he added, ruefully.
"Yes, I remember," said Doane, but Hatch knew that he did not. And meanwhile a thousand questions were surging through the reporter's brain.