I suggested he had been somewhat confidential.
At once he recovered his pose and patronized me.
"Don't you believe it," he said. "That's all part of my game. 'Confidence for confidence' is the way I work it. That's how I learn things. I tell a man something on the inside, and he says: 'Here's a nice young fellow. Nothing standoffish about him,' and he tells me something he shouldn't. Like as not what I told him wasn't true. See?"
I assured him he interested me greatly.
"You find, then, in your line of business," I asked, "that apparent frankness is advisable? As a rule," I explained, "secrecy is what a—a person in your line—a—"
To save his feelings I hesitated at the word.
"A spy," he said. His face beamed with fatuous complacency.
"But if I had not known you were a spy," I asked, "would not that have been better for you?"
"In dealing with a party like you, Mr. Crosby," Schnitzel began sententiously, "I use a different method. You're on a secret mission yourself, and you get your information about the nitrate row one way, and I get it another. I deal with you just like we were drummers in the same line of goods. We are rivals in business, but outside of business hours perfect gentlemen."
In the face of the disbelief that had met my denials of any secret mission, I felt to have Schnitzel also disbelieve me would be too great a humiliation. So I remained silent.