"Funny thing," exclaimed the chief clerk to a stenographer as they were leaving the office that afternoon. "Funny thing: when I first came here James Neal was close as a clam; never a word out of him. Paid no attention to anybody, all gloom. Now look at him helping everybody! Best old scout in the office!"
As he nodded his head in emphasis, his eyeglasses trembled on his nose—but they stuck.
"I've not got a better friend in the whole town than James Neal, and I know it," he added, "and I guess that's true of everybody in the office!"
It was true that Mr. Neal and the chief clerk had become fast friends. They had come to spend their Sundays together, and even to share confidences, and so it was natural that when Mr. Neal saw the face for the third time he should be moved to tell his friend about it. This telling of his secret was epochal in Mr. Neal's life.
The two men sat on a bench in a more or less secluded part of Bronx Park. Mr. Neal looked off among the trees as he told the story of the face hesitatingly, often in difficulty for the right word, the light of the mystic in his glowing eyes. The chief clerk listened attentively, his cane across his knees, his lean face serious. His eyes bored into the very mind of his friend with their keen gaze. When Mr. Neal told of his failure to find the man with the good face in the house on Third Avenue, his friend shook his head definitely.
"No!" he said. "No! I'll tell you what it is: it is what they call a hallucination."
"Oh, no," replied Mr. Neal calmly. "It is real, John. There's no doubt it's real."
The chief clerk shook his head sharply again, and there was a pause.
"I felt I must tell you," resumed Mr. Neal at length, "because I saw him again last night."
His friend looked quickly at the little clerk, who gazed away among the trees, his eyes luminous.