It was my turn to shrug my shoulders. "I should not be apt to select you as a friend."

"I wonder"–very slowly and lazily–"whether it be possible that I can in any way, quite inadvertently, have interfered with your plans?"

"Rather say," I broke out imprudently, "that it is possible I may interfere with yours!"

He laughed. "I wonder how?"

"In no definite way, unless–I should happen suddenly to remember exactly where and how I have met you before. That little accident might slightly hamper your career in general for the future perhaps."

"You are pleased to be insulting. And yet, somehow, I don't want to take offence from you. I would much prefer to argue you out of your somewhat unreasonable prejudice and mistake. Do you suggest, for instance, that I am now concealing my identity under a disguise?"

So speaking he raised his hand with a pretence at carelessness, pushing his dark hair from his forehead in such a way as to assure me without doubt that he did not wear a wig.

"The moustache–allow me to give you an ocular demonstration–is equally genuine," he sneered. "I don't sport a false nose, or I should have procured myself a more desirable one, and my teeth"–with a disagreeable grin–"are my own. Have I convinced you that I have not tampered with Nature's handiwork, such as it is?"

"You might have waited, Mr. Wildred," I returned, "until I had accused you of doing so before trying to prove the contrary. You know the saying, 'He who excuses, accuses himself,' I suppose?"

"I have heard it, though fortunately it does not concern the case. Look here, Mr. Stanton, you and I are sitting here among mutual friends, apparently holding, so far as they can see or hear, an amicable discussion. But the truth is I have wit enough to understand that what you would like and what you mean is–war to the knife! Fortunately for me, I am one of Her Majesty's most peaceable, law-abiding subjects, and always have been so. I have as little to hide in my past as any man can possibly have–less than yourself even, it may be–and therefore I do not fear your prying, and can afford to laugh at your impertinence.