"Oh, come now," said he, "tell me something improbable while you are about it."
"It's true," I replied, repressing my mirth; "true as the tale of Timothy. I knew him when he was a mere boy. But I don't give you that as a proof, for he might have become all things to all men since. Ask Miss Trevor; or Miss Thorn; she knows the other man, the bicycle man, and has seen them both together."
"Where, in India? Was one standing on the ground looking at his double go to heaven? Or was it at one of those drawing-room shows where a medium holds conversation with your soul, while your body sleeps on the lounge? By George, Crocker, I thought you were a sensible man."
No wonder I got angry. But I might have come at some proper estimation of Farrar's incredulity by that time.
"I suppose you wouldn't take a lady's word," I growled.
"Not for that," he said, busy again with the sail stops; "nor St. Chrysostom's, were he to come here and vouch for it. It is too damned improbable."
"Stranger things than that have happened," I retorted, fuming.
"Not to any of us," he said. Presently he added, chuckling: "He'd better not get into the clutches of that man Drew."
"What do you mean?" I demanded. Farrar was exasperating at times.
"Drew will wind those handcuffs on him like tourniquets," he laughed.