“Not unless you wish to.”
“Then why, if I may ask, do you carry about a parcel which, I should say, weighs anything between one and two tons, simply to use it as a temporary table ornament? Is it the Sandow System?”
“No,” I said; “it’s like this.”
And suddenly it dawned on me that it was not going to be particularly easy to explain to Hatton just what it was that I wanted him to do.
I made the thing clear at last, suppressing, of course, my reasons for the move. When he had grasped my meaning, he looked at me rather curiously.
“Doesn’t it strike you,” he said, “that what you propose is slightly dishonourable?”
“You mean that I have come deliberately to insult you, Hatton?”
“Our conversation seems to be getting difficult, unless you grant that honour is not one immovable, intangible landmark, fixed for humanity, but that it is a commodity we all carry with us in varying forms.”
“Personally, I believe that, as a help to identification, honour-impressions would be as useful as fingerprints.”
“Good! You agree with me. Now, you may have a different view; but, in my opinion, if I were to pose as the writer of your books, and gained credit for a literary skill——”