phet," said Mr. Cooke, "but I did predict that
I would start a ripple here, didn't I?"

I did not deny this.

"How do I stand over there?" he inquired, designating Asquith by a twist
of the head. "I hear they're acting all over the road; that they think
I'm the very devil."

"Well, your stock has dropped some, I admit," I answered. "They didn't
take kindly to your getting the judge drunk, you know."

"They oughtn't to complain about that," said my client; "and besides, he
wasn't drunk enough to amount to anything."

"However that may be," said I, "you have the credit for leading him
astray. But there is a split in your favor."

"I'm glad to know that," he said, brightening; "then I won't have to
import any more."

"Any more what?" I asked.

"People from the East to keep things moving, of course. What I have
here and those left me at the inn ought to be enough to run through the
summer with. Don't you think so?"

I thought so, and was moving off when he called me back.

"Is the judge locked up, old man?" he demanded.

"He's under rather close surveillance," I replied, smiling.

"Crocker;" he said confidentially, "see if you can't smuggle him over
here some day soon. The judge always holds good cards, and plays a
number one hand."

I promised, and escaped. On the veranda I came upon Miss Thorn
surrounded by some of her uncle's guests. I imagine that she was bored,
for she looked it.

"Mr. Crocker," she called out, "you're just the man I have been wishing
to see."

The others naturally took this for a dismissal, and she was not long in
coming to her point when we were alone.

"What is it you know about this queer but gifted genius who is here so
mysteriously?" she asked.

"Nothing whatever," I confessed. "I knew him before he thought of
becoming a genius."

"Retrogression is always painful," she said; "but tell me something
about him then."

I told her all I knew, being that narrated in these pages. "Now," said
I, "if you will pardon a curiosity on my part, from what you said the
other evening I inferred that he closely resembles the man whose name it
pleased him to assume. And that man, I learn from the newspapers, is Mr.
Charles Wrexell Allen of the 'Miles Standish Bicycle Company.'"

Miss Thorn made a comic gesture of despair.

"Why he chose Mr. Allen's name," she said, "is absolutely beyond my
guessing. Unless there is some purpose behind the choice, which I do not
for an instant believe, i