“Good God!”

Instantly Thursday Smith straightened up and looked at the man questioningly.  Fogerty stretched out his hand and said, as if in wonder: 

“Why, Melville, old man, what are you doing here?  We wondered what had become of you, all these months.  Shake hands, my boy!  I’m glad I’ve found you.”

Smith leaned against the press and stared at him with dilated eyes.  Everyone in the room was regarding the scene with intense but repressed excitement.

“What’s wrong, Harold?” continued Fogerty, as if hurt by the other’s hesitation to acknowledge their acquaintance.  “You haven’t forgotten me, have you?  I’m McCormick, you know, and you and I have had many a good time together in the past.”

Smith passed his hand across his forehead with a dazed gesture.

“What name did you call me, sir?” he asked.

“Melville; Harold Melville, of East Sixty-sixth street.  I’m sure I’m right.  There can’t be two like you in the world, you know.”

Thursday Smith stepped down from the platform and with a staggering gait walked to a stool, on which he weakly sank.  He wiped the beads of perspiration from his forehead and looked at Fogerty with a half frightened air.

“And you—­are—­McCormick?” he faltered.

“Of course.”

Smith stared a moment and then shook his head.

“It’s no use,” he said despairingly; “I can’t recall a single memory of either Harold Melville or—­or his friend McCormick.  Pardon me, sir; I must confess my mind is absolutely blank concerning all my life previous to the last two years.  Until this moment I—­I could not recall my own name.”

“H’m,” muttered Fogerty; “you recall it now, don’t you?”

“No.  You tell me my name is Melville, and you seem to recognize me as a man whom you once knew.  I accept your statement in good faith, but I cannot corroborate it from my own knowledge.”

“That’s queer,” retorted Fogerty, his cold eyes fixed upon the man’s face.

“Let me explain, please,” said Smith, and related his curious experience in practically the same words he had employed when confiding it to Mr. Merrick.  “I had hoped,” he concluded, “that if ever I met one who knew me formerly, or heard my right name mentioned, my memory would come back to me; but in this I am sorely disappointed.  Did you know me well, sir?”

“Pretty well,” answered the detective, after a slight hesitation.

“Then tell me something about myself.  Tell me who I was.”

“Here—­in public?” asked Fogerty, with a suggestive glance at the spectators, who had involuntarily crowded nearer.

Smith flushed, but gazed firmly into the faces surrounding him.

“Why not?” he returned.  “These young ladies and Mr. Merrick accepted me without knowledge of my antecedents.  They are entitled to as full an explanation as—­as I am.”

“You place me, Melville, in a rather embarrassing position,” declared Fogerty.  “This is a queer case—­the queerest in all my experience.  Better let me post you in a private interview.”