nder link that connects me with my babyhood. It wag
around my neck when Scharfenstein picked me up. Open it and look at
the face inside."

I did so. A woman's face peered up at me. It might have been
beautiful but for the troubled eyes and the drooping lips. It was
German in type, evidently of high breeding, possessing the subtle lines
which distinguish the face of the noble from the peasant's. From the
woman's face I glanced at Max's. The eyes were something alike.

"Who do you think it is?" I asked, when I had studied the face
sufficiently to satisfy my curiosity.

"I've a sneaking idea that it may be my mother. Scharfenstein found me
toddling about in a railroad station, and that locket was the only
thing about me that might be used in the matter of identification. You
will observe that there is no lettering, not even the jeweler's usual
carat-mark to qualify the gold. I recall nothing; life with me dates
only from the wide plains and grazing cattle. I was born either in
Germany or Austria. That's all I know. And to tell you the honest
truth, boy, it's the reason I've placed my woman-ideal so high. So
long as I place her over my head I'm not foolish enough to weaken into
thinking I can have her. What woman wants a man without a name?"

"You poor old Dutchman, you! You can buy a genealogy with your income.
And a woman nowadays marries the man, the man. It's only horses, dogs
and cattle that we buy for their pedigrees. Come; you ought to have a
strawberry mark on your arm," I suggested lightly; for there were times
when Max brooded over the mystery which enveloped his birth.

In reply he rolled up his sleeve and bared a mighty arm. Where the
vaccination scar usually is I saw a red patch, like a burn. I leaned
over and examined it. It was a four-pointed scar, with a perfect
circle around it. Somehow, it seemed to me that this was not the first
time I had seen this peculiar mark. I did not recollect ever seeing it
on Max's arm. Where had I seen it, then?

"It looks like a burn," I ventured to suggest.

"It is. I wish I knew what it signifies. Scharfenstein said that it
was positively fresh when he found me. He said I cried a good deal and
kept telling him that I was Max. Maybe I'm an anarchist and don't know
it,"--with half a smile.

"It's a curious scar. Hang me, but I've seen the device somewhere
before!"

"You have?"--eagerly. "Where, where?"

"I don't know; possibly I saw it