VII
The telephone rang in Lanny's room, and he heard a voice, speaking English with a decided foreign accent: “Can you guess?” Someone in a playful mood; he kept on talking, and Lanny, who had heard so many kinds of accents in his young life, tried his best to think, but nothing stirred in his memory. “Five years ago,” said the stranger. “On a railroad train.” Lanny groped in his mind. “I got on at Genoa,” said the voice; and suddenly a light dawned, and the youth cried: “Mr. Robin!”
“Johannes Robin, Maatschappij voor Electrische Specialiteiten, Rotterdam — at your service!” chuckled the voice.
“Well, well!” said Lanny. “What are you doing here?”
“A little business, which will be a secret until I see you.”
“And how are the boys?”
“Fine, Lanny, fine — do I call you Lanny, even though you are grown up to a young gentleman?”
“You bet you do, Mr. Robin. I'll never forget the favors you have done me.” In the course of the last four years Mr. Robin had mailed six or eight letters to Kurt in Germany, one of them only a week or two previously. That was how the trader knew that Lanny was in Paris, and his address.
Of course Lanny wanted to see that friend, even busy as he was with all the affairs of Europe. “I'm going to have lunch with my father,” he said. “Wouldn't you like to join us?”
“Sure, I like to meet your father,” said the dealer in electrical gadgets. Lanny told him where to come.