"Yes," said Northcote, seating himself at the table, "and, in consequence, the most contemptible." "That seems rather ungrateful," I remarked. Northcote looked at me keenly. "Can you imagine any man who was not wholly contemptible deliberately moulding himself into a piece of servile machinery in order to get an easy living? I have infinitely more respect for a thief than a successful waiter." I laughed. "I dare say you are right," I answered. "Anyway, I must admit that I would sooner be a thief if I had to choose." "What are you?" asked Northcote abruptly. The question took me by surprise, and for a moment I hesitated. "I am not asking out of mere curiosity," he said. "I didn't think you were," I returned pleasantly. "That was why I was doubtful about answering you." He smiled, looking at me curiously, with the same disconcerting intentness. "Let us be frank, then," he said suddenly. "It happens that you have the power to be of considerable service to me, Mr. Burton." He paused. "Indeed?" I said, lighting a cigarette. "On the other hand," he went on, "there is certainly a chance that I might be of some use to you." I thought of the reported extent of his income, and then of my beautiful Bolivian goldfield. "It is quite possible," I admitted gravely. He leaned forward with his hands on the table. I noticed that they were muscular and sunburned--the hands of a man who has done hard physical work. "But I must know more about you," he said. "Who are you? Where do you come from? What do you want from life?" As he asked the last question, the door of the room opened, and the waiter came in, carrying supper. While the man was handing round the dishes and pouring out the wine--a delicious wine it was, too, by the way--Northcote talked away lightly and cleverly about several more or less topical subjects. I answered him occasionally, in the same careless strain; but my mind was almost wholly occupied with the mysterious suggestion that he had just let fall. I was wondering what on earth the service could be that I was capable of rendering him. That it had something to do with our amazing likeness to each other I felt convinced; but beyond that it was impossible to guess. The whole thing--our meeting on the Embankment, his invitation to supper, and the strange hint of an unknown purpose in his actions--had all been so sudden and bizarre that I felt as if I had been caught up into some modern version of the Arabian Nights.