“I am afraid I do not,” I answered, in a vain endeavor to embarrass him.

“You’re thicker than when I used to know you, then,” he returned with candor.  “To tell the truth, Crocker, I often wish I were back at the law, and had never written a line.  I am paying the penalty of fame.  Wherever I go I am hounded to death by the people who have read my books, and they want to dine and wine me for the sake of showing me off at their houses.  I am heartily sick and tired of it all; you would be if you had to go through it.  I could stand a winter, but the worst comes in the summer, when one meets the women who fire all sorts of socio-psychological questions at one for solution, and who have suggestions for stories.”  He shuddered.

“And what has all this to do with your coming here?” I cut in, strangling a smile.

He twisted his cigarette at an acute angle with his face, and looked at me out of the corner of his eye.

“I’ll try to be a little plainer,” he went on, sighing as one unused to deal with people who require crosses on their t’s.  “I’ve been worried almost out of my mind with attention—­nothing but attention the whole time.  I can’t go on the street but what I’m stared at and pointed out, so I thought of a scheme to relieve it for a time.  It was becoming unbearable.  I determined to assume a name and go to some quiet little place for the summer, West, if possible, where I was not likely to be recognized, and have three months of rest.”

He paused, but I offered no comment.

“Well, the more I thought of it, the better I liked the idea.  I met a western man at the club and asked him about western resorts, quiet ones.  ‘Have you heard of Asquith?’ says he.  ‘No,’ said I; ‘describe it.’  He did, and it was just the place; quaint, restful, and retired.  Of course I put him off the track, but I did not count on striking you.  My man boxed up, and we were off in twenty-four hours, and here I am.”

Now all this was very fine, but not at all in keeping with the Celebrity’s character as I had come to conceive it.  The idea that adulation ever cloyed on him was ludicrous in itself.  In fact I thought the whole story fishy, and came very near to saying so.

“You won’t tell anyone who I am, will you?” he asked anxiously.

He even misinterpreted my silences.

“Certainly not,” I replied.  “It is no concern of mine.  You might come here as Emil Zola or Ralph Waldo Emerson and it would make no difference to me.”

He looked at me dubiously, even suspiciously.

“That’s a good chap,” said he, and was gone, leaving me to reflect on the ways of genius.

And the longer I reflected, the more positive I became that there existed a more potent reason for the Celebrity’s disguise than ennui.  As actions speak louder than words, so does a man’s character often give the lie to his tongue.

CHAPTER IV