Mr. Y. How? How can you see it?
Mr. X. I have taught myself. It’s just a science, like so many others. But now we won’t talk about it any more. [Looks at his watch, takes out a paper for signature, dips his pen in the ink and hands it to MR. Y.] I must think of my own business troubles. Would you mind witnessing my signature on this bill which I shall present to the Malmo bank to-morrow when I follow you?
Mr. Y. I don’t intend to travel by Malmo.
Mr. X. No?
Mr. Y. No.
Mr. X. But at all events you can witness my signature?
Mr. Y. No, I never put my name to a piece of paper.
Mr. X. Again—that’s the fifth time you’ve refused to sign your name. The first time was on a post-receipt—that was when I first began to observe you; now I notice that you are frightened of pen and ink. You haven’t sent off one letter since we’ve been here; only a single letter-card, and that you wrote in pencil. Do you understand now how I worked out your lapse? Again, that’s the seventh time you refused to accompany me to Malmo, though you haven’t been there at all this time. And all the time you’ve come here from America simply to see Malmo. And every morning you go half-a-mile southward to the windmills just so as to see the roofs of—
Malmo. And you stand there, my friend, by the right window, and look out through the third pane of glass on the left counting from the bottom, so that you get a view of the spires of the castle and the chimney of the prison. So you see now it’s not a case of my being so smart, but of your being so dense.
Mr. Y. Now you despise me?