"Well, don't give it away," I pleaded. "I hope to be famous some day, and if the American newspaper paragrapher ever got hold of the fact that once in my life I was Hiram, I'd have to Hiram to let me alone."
"That's a bad joke, Hiram," said the visitor, "and for that reason I like it, though I don't laugh. There is no danger of your becoming famous if you stick to humor of that sort."
"Well, I'd like to know," I put in, my anger returning—"I'd like to know who in Brindisi you are, what in Cairo you want, and what in the name of the seventeen hinges of the gates of Singapore you are doing here at this time of night?"
"When you were a baby, Hiram, you had blue eyes," said my visitor. "Bonny blue eyes, as the poet says."
"What of it?" I asked.
"This," replied my visitor. "If you have them now, you can very easily see what I am doing here. I am sitting down and talking to you."
"Oh, are you?" I said, with fine scorn. "I had not observed that. The fact is, my eyes were so weakened by the brilliance of that necktie of yours that I doubt I could see anything—not even one of my own jokes. It's a scorcher, that tie of yours. In fact, I never saw anything so red in my life."
"I do not see why you complain of my tie," said the visitor. "Your own is just as bad."
"Blue is never so withering as red," I retorted, at the same time caressing the scarf I wore.
"Perhaps not—but—ah—if you will look in the glass, Hiram, you will observe that your point is not well taken," said my vis-a-vis, calmly.