“By the chin whiskers of the prophet—­no!” answered the guest.  “Now York’s as full of cheap Haroun al Raschids as Bagdad is of fleas.  I’ve been held up for my story with a loaded meal pointed at my head twenty times.  Catch anybody in New York giving you something for nothing!  They spell curiosity and charity with the same set of building blocks.  Lots of ’em will stake you to a dime and chop-suey; and a few of ’em will play Caliph to the tune of a top sirloin; but every one of ’em will stand over you till they screw your autobiography out of you with foot notes, appendix and unpublished fragments.  Oh, I know what to do when I see victuals coming toward me in little old Bagdad-on-the-Subway.  I strike the asphalt three times with my forehead and get ready to spiel yarns for my supper.  I claim descent from the late Tommy Tucker, who was forced to hand out vocal harmony for his pre-digested wheaterina and spoopju.”

“I do not ask your story,” said Chalmers.  “I tell you frankly that it was a sudden whim that prompted me to send for some stranger to dine with me.  I assure you you will not suffer through any curiosity of mine.”

“Oh, fudge!” exclaimed the guest, enthusiastically tackling his soup; “I don’t mind it a bit.  I’m a regular Oriental magazine with a red cover and the leaves cut when the Caliph walks abroad.  In fact, we fellows in the bed line have a sort of union rate for things of this sort.  Somebody’s always stopping and wanting to know what brought us down so low in the world.  For a sandwich and a glass of beer I tell ’em that drink did it.  For corned beef and cabbage and a cup of coffee I give ’em the hard-hearted-landlord—­six-months-in-the-hospital-lost-job story.  A sirloin steak and a quarter for a bed gets the Wall Street tragedy of the swept-away fortune and the gradual descent.  This is the first spread of this kind I’ve stumbled against.  I haven’t got a story to fit it.  I’ll tell you what, Mr. Chalmers, I’m going to tell you the truth for this, if you’ll listen to it.  It’ll be harder for you to believe than the made-up ones.”

An hour later the Arabian guest lay back with a sigh of satisfaction while Phillips brought the coffee and cigars and cleared the table.

“Did you ever hear of Sherrard Plumer?” he asked, with a strange smile.

“I remember the name,” said Chalmers.  “He was a painter, I think, of a good deal of prominence a few years ago.”

“Five years,” said the guest.  “Then I went down like a chunk of lead.  I’m Sherrard Plumer!  I sold the last portrait I painted for $2,000.  After that I couldn’t have found a sitter for a gratis picture.”

“What was the trouble?” Chalmers could not resist asking.

“Funny thing,” answered Plumer, grimly.  “Never quite understood it myself.  For a while I swam like a cork.  I broke into the swell crowd and got commissions right and left.  The newspapers called me a fashionable painter.  Then the funny things began to happen.  Whenever I finished a picture people would come to see it, and whisper and look queerly at one another.”