Probably the slight flush that mantles the face he speaks to is less due to any offence at his fat, good-humoured German raillery than to some vague apprehension of the real nature of the position about to develop. But Fenwick imputes it to the former. If Rosey was inclined to treat the thing as a harmless joke, he would follow suit; but she looks hurt, and her husband, sensitive about every word that is said to her, blazes out:
"What on earth do you mean? What the devil do you mean? How dare you speak to my wife like that?" He makes a half-step
towards the burly mass of flesh, still shaking with laughter. But his wife stops him.
"Do be patient, Gerry darling! Don't flare up like that. I'll have a divorce. I'll tell Sally...." a threat which seems to have a softening effect. "Can't you see, dear, that there is some misunderstanding?" Fenwick looks from her to the Baron, puzzled. The latter drops his jocular rallying.
"I saw last night you did not know me, Mr. Harrisson. That is straintch! Have you forgotten Diedrich Kreutzkammer?" He says his name with a sort of quiet confidence of immediate recognition. But Fenwick only looks blankly at him.
"He does not know me!" cries the German, with an astonished voice. "'Frisco—the Klondyke—Chicago—the bridge at Brooklyn—why, it is not two years ago...." He pauses between the names of the places, enforcing each as a reminder with an active forefinger.
Fenwick seems suddenly to breathe the fresh air of a solution of the problem. He breaks into a sunny smile, to his wife's great relief.
"Indeed, Baron Kreutzkammer, my name is not Harrisson. My name is Fenwick, and this lady is my wife—Mrs. Fenwick. I have never been in any of the places you mention." For the moment he forgot his own state of oblivion: a thing he was getting more and more in the habit of doing. The Baron looked intently at him, and looked again. He slapped his forehead, not lightly at all, but as if good hard slaps would really correct his misapprehensions and put him right with the world.
"I am all wronck" he said, borrowing extra force from an indurated g. "But it is ferry bustling—I am bustled!" By this he meant puzzled. Fenwick felt apologetic.
"I don't know how to thank you for the cigar Mr. Harrisson ought to have had," said he. He felt really ashamed of having smoked it under false pretences.