'Twickenham!' He continued to stare. 'You are Twickenham?'
'I am. If there's money in it, you bet I am. Is it a place, or a thing? Sounds like a sort of password.'
'Leonard!'
'Am I him, too? I've been lots of people in my time, Lord knows. What's one more?'
'Why should you think it necessary to play this farce with me?'
'I'm asking. Excuse me, but are you----?' He touched his forehead with his forefinger. 'I am.'
I am generally tolerably clear-headed. Never before had I been conscious of such mental confusion. It was a peculiar sensation. As he made that gesture with his forefinger it was all at once borne in on me that, after all, I had made a common or garden fool of myself, and that this was actually not the man. As I observed him, closely a dozen minute points of difference forced themselves upon my notice. I so clearly realised my own asininity that, for the instant, I was speechless. Then I stammered out--
'You must excuse, sir, what probably appears to you my very singular behaviour, but, the fact is, you have the most amazing resemblance to a person with whom I was once very intimate.'
'Poor devil!'
'He was a poor devil.'