“Very well,” said I. And then it seemed to me that tact required that I should not seem to know that he had been in the superheated jail of the Stygian country. So I observed, “You've been off on a vacation, eh?”
“How do you know that?” was the immediate response.
“Well,” I put in, “you've been absent for a fortnight, and you look more or less—ah—burned.”
“Yes, I am,” replied the deceitful editor. “Very much burned, in fact. I've been—er—I've been playing golf with a friend down in Cimmeria.”
“I envy you,” I observed, with an inward chuckle.
“You wouldn't if you knew the links,” replied Boswell, sadly. “They're awfully hard. I don't know any harder course than the Cimmerian.”
And then I became conscious of a mistrustful gaze fastened upon me.
“See here,” clicked the machine. “I thought I was invisible to you? If so, how do you know I look burned?”
I was cornered, and there was only one way out of it, and that was by telling the truth. “Well, you are invisible, old chap,” I said. “The fact is, I've been told of your trouble, and I know what you have undergone.”
“And who told you?” queried Boswell.