“There, old man!” he exclaimed.  “What do you think of that?  Something of a sendoff, eh?” And he pointed to a rather stout and important gentleman in the foreground.  “That’s me!” he said proudly, “and they wouldn’t do that for Farquhar Fenelon Cooke in Philadelphia.”

“A prophet is without honor in his own country,” I remarked.

“I don’t set up for a prophet,” 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, it was a foolish thing to do, and one very apt to lead to difficulties.  I can understand the rest.  He has a reputation for eccentricity which he feels he must keep up, and this notion of assuming a name evidently appealed to him as an inspiration.”