Teevan, let's be very quiet and get at this. I never
heard your name until an hour ago. Perhaps it ought to mean something to
me, but it doesn't. I'm not well acquainted in New York; I only came
here to-day. Now"--his voice became cajoling--"suppose you sit down
there quietly and tell me all about yourself."

"Your name is Ewing, isn't it?"

"Of course!"

"What's your full name?"

"Gilbert Denham Ewing."

"Damn him!"

"Damn him? You are speaking of me?"

"Not you--you cub!"

"Another Ewing?"

"Another Gilbert Denham Ewing!"

"I never knew any other but my father. And you wouldn't be damning him."

He said this with a confident smile, and the peering little man at last
read him accurately. An impalpable veil seemed to screen his scowling
face. Erect from his peering stoop he passed a small hand dazedly across
his brow, and his face had become pleasantly ingenuous, alive with a
half-comprehending regret. With a rueful laugh he put out a hand to
Ewing, who took it, to say the least, doubtfully.

"A thousand pardons, my boy! I fear I've suffered an attack of nervous
aberration to which I am unhappily subject. It's most distressing. I'm
chagrined beyond measure by the annoyance I must have caused you, I give
no end of worry to my specialist by these seizures. My speech wandered
provokingly, I dare say. It always does. You'd not credit some of the
things I've said to my dearest friends at such times. But you can fancy
the mortification it is to me. You'll pardon me, I trust--youth's
charity for the failings of age. The horrid truth is that I'm a bit
oldish--not aged, not outworn, mind you--my years have come and gone
lightly--but at times like these I'm obliged to admit the count. Come,
you'll forget?"

Ewing delightedly pressed his hand. He could believe the little man's
tale of his years. The hair that he had remarked for its young look had
been uncannily twisted on the head of its wearer during the flurry of
his transport. An area of luminous scalp now showed above one ear.

He stammered awkward but heartfelt words of assurance.

"Doubtless it quite bowled you over," Teevan pursued--"though I never
can recall what I've said; but let us forget, and, if you'd not mind,
let us say nothing of it to anyone--to Mrs. Laithe, for example. If it
came to the ears of my son--he's over-anxious about me already."

"Certainly, I'll not speak of it, and I'm sorry, very sorry. Lay your
gloves on the mantel there and f