“Why are you surprised?” the man asked abruptly.
“It would take a long time to explain,” I answered, equivocating, “but it is a curious coincidence that only yesterday I almost met a man named Smithson. I was wondering if he could be some relation of yours. He was not like you in face.”
“Oh, so you know Smithson?”
“No, I don’t know him. I have never met him. I said I almost met him.”
“Have you never seen him, then?”
“Never in my life.”
“And yet you say he is ‘not like me in face.’ How do you know he is not like me in face if you have never seen him?”
The sudden directness of his tone disconcerted me. For an instant I felt like a witness being cross-examined by a bullying Counsel.
“I’ve seen a portrait of him.”
“Indeed?”