"I left it in the seat in the car there behind my wife," said the angry voice of a stranger, a well-dressed man who put his head into the door of the compartment.
Then his face, too, beamed all at once with recognition. But it was not for me. It was for the fifty-dollar valise.
"Ah, there it is," he cried, seizing it and carrying it off.
I sank back in dismay. The "old gang!" Pete's marriage! My grandmother's death! Great heavens! And my money! I saw it all; the other man was "making talk," too, and making it with a purpose.
Stung!
And next time that I fall into talk with a casual stranger in a car, I shall not try to be quite so extraordinarily clever.
V.—Under the Barber's Knife
"WAS you to the Arena the other night?" said the barber, leaning over me and speaking in his confidential whisper.
"Yes," I said, "I was there."