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.”

“But why did he come out here?” I asked.  “Can you tell me that?”

Miss Thorn flushed slightly, and ignored the question.

“I met the ‘Celebrity,’ as you call him,” she said, “for the first time last winter, and I saw him frequently during the season.  Of course I had heard not a little about him and his peculiarities.  His name seems to have gone the length and breadth of the land.  And, like most girls, I had read his books and confess I enjoyed them.  It is not too much to say,” she added archly, “that I made a sort of archangel out of the author.”

“I can understand that,” said I.

“But that did not last,” she continued hastily.  “I see I have got beside my story.  I saw a great deal of him in New York.  He came to call, and I believe I danced with him once or twice.  And then my aunt, Mrs. Rivers, bought a place near Epsom, in Massachusetts, and had a house party there in May.  And the Celebrity was invited.”

I smiled.

“Oh, I assure you it was a mere chance,” said Miss Thorn.  “I mention this that I may tell you the astonishing part of it all.  Epsom is one of those smoky manufacturing towns one sees in New England, and the ’Miles Standish’ bicycle is made there.  The day after we all arrived at my aunt’s a man came up the drive on a wheel whom I greeted in a friendly way and got a decidedly uncertain bow in return.