“Congratulations in order, old man?  Come—­you’re caught—­own up!  Who is she?” This with a crony-like dig in the ribs.  “Runaway match, eh?”

At the other’s greeting, Ridgeway promptly assured himself that all was lost, and was about to return the welcome as best he could, when the danger in the final words checked him, compelled a subterfuge.

Assuming a stony glare, an unnatural twist of the mouth, the “old man” turned his bewildered glance upon the speaker, allowing it to resolve itself into a sickening show of reproachfulness, and said in a voice that almost made its owner laugh, it was so villainously artificial: 

“You have the best of me, sir!”

An amazed expression came over the face of Mr. Woods.  His glowing smile dwindled into an incredulous stare.

“Don’t you know me, Hugh?” he finally demanded, half indignantly.

“I do not, sir.  My name is not Hugh, by the way.  It is evident that you mistake me for some one else,” answered Mr. Ridgeway solemnly and gutturally.

“Do you mean to say—­oh, come now, old man, don’t stand up there and try to make a monkey of me.  When did you get in?” cried Woods.

“Pardon me,” sharply responded the other, “but I must insist that you are mistaken.  I am Dr. James Morton of Baltimore.  The resemblance must be remarkable.”

Woods glared at Hugh, perfectly dumb with amazement.  He passed his hand over his eyes, cleared his throat a time or two, but seemed completely at a loss for words to express himself.

“Are you in earnest?” he stammered.  “Are you not Hugh Ridgeway of Princeton, ninety—­” but Hugh interrupted him politely.

“Assuredly not.  Never was at Princeton in my life.  Yale.  Will you give me your name and the address of your friend, please?  By Jove, I’d like to hunt him up some time!” Hugh was searching in his pockets as if for a pencil and memorandum-book and waiting for his old chum to give him his name.

“Well, of all the—­” muttered Woods, looking into the other’s face penetratingly.  “I never heard of anything like it.  My name is McLane Woods, and the man who looks like you is Hugh Ridgeway of Chicago.  I—­I’ll be hanged if it isn’t too strange to be true.”

“Very strange, indeed,” smiled Hugh, striving to maintain the expression he had assumed at the beginning—­a very difficult task.

“But this isn’t all.  At Newburg, I boarded the train, and happening to go through, I saw some one that I could have sworn was a Miss Vernon, whom I met when visiting Ridgeway in Chicago.  I started to speak to her; but she gave me such a frigid stare that I sailed by, convinced that I was mistaken.  Two such likenesses in one day beats my time.  Doesn’t seem possible, by George! it doesn’t,” exclaimed the puzzled New Yorker, his eyes glued to the countenance of the man before him, who, by the way, had almost betrayed himself at the mention of Miss Vernon’s name.  A thrill of admiration ran through him when Woods announced his reception by the clever girl who was running away with him.