This odd little incident occurred in my apartment, where John Bartine was passing an evening.  We had dined together at the club, had come home in a cab and—­in short, everything had been done in the most prosaic way; and why John Bartine should break in upon the natural and established order of things to make himself spectacular with a display of emotion, apparently for his own entertainment, I could nowise understand.  The more I thought of it, while his brilliant conversational gifts were commending themselves to my inattention, the more curious I grew, and of course had no difficulty in persuading myself that my curiosity was friendly solicitude.  That is the disguise that curiosity usually assumes to evade resentment.  So I ruined one of the finest sentences of his disregarded monologue by cutting it short without ceremony.

“John Bartine,” I said, “you must try to forgive me if I am wrong, but with the light that I have at present I cannot concede your right to go all to pieces when asked the time o’ night.  I cannot admit that it is proper to experience a mysterious reluctance to look your own watch in the face and to cherish in my presence, without explanation, painful emotions which are denied to me, and which are none of my business.”

To this ridiculous speech Bartine made no immediate reply, but sat looking gravely into the fire.  Fearing that I had offended I was about to apologize and beg him to think no more about the matter, when looking me calmly in the eyes he said: 

“My dear fellow, the levity of your manner does not at all disguise the hideous impudence of your demand; but happily I had already decided to tell you what you wish to know, and no manifestation of your unworthiness to hear it shall alter my decision.  Be good enough to give me your attention and you shall hear all about the matter.

“This watch,” he said, “had been in my family for three generations before it fell to me.  Its original owner, for whom it was made, was my great-grandfather, Bramwell Olcott Bartine, a wealthy planter of Colonial Virginia, and as stanch a Tory as ever lay awake nights contriving new kinds of maledictions for the head of Mr. Washington, and new methods of aiding and abetting good King George.  One day this worthy gentleman had the deep misfortune to perform for his cause a service of capital importance which was not recognized as legitimate by those who suffered its disadvantages.  It does not matter what it was, but among its minor consequences was my excellent ancestor’s arrest one night in his own house by a party of Mr. Washington’s rebels.  He was permitted to say farewell to his weeping family, and was then marched away into the darkness which swallowed him up forever.  Not the slenderest clew to his fate was ever found.  After the war the most diligent inquiry and the offer of large rewards failed to turn up any of his captors or any fact concerning his disappearance.  He had disappeared, and that was all.”