"We're nearly a minute off now," he said, "and I've let myself in to wait for a Dutchman I let run out when I saw you coming. There he is. Third car up for you, sir," and he ran up to the steps of the second car himself. The missing passenger came tearing through the gates just as Wallingford went up the car steps. The conductor held his hand aloft, and the engineer, looking back, impatiently clanged his bell. The porter picked up his stepping-box and jumped on after his tip, but he looked out to watch the little German racing with all his might up the platform, and did not withdraw his head until the belated one, all legs and arms, scrambled upon the train. Instantly the wheels began to revolve, both vestibule doors were closed with a slam, and a moment later Carl Klug, puffing and panting, dropped upon a seat in the smoking compartment, opposite to the calm J. Rufus Wallingford, without breath--and without his umbrella. "_Schrecklich!_" he exploded when he could talk. "They are all thieves here. I leave my umbrella in the waiting-room five minutes, I go back and it is gone. Gone! And it was my wife's umbrella!" Under ordinary circumstances Mr. Klug, whose thirty years of residence in America had not altogether destroyed certain old-country notions of caste, would not have ventured to address this lordly-looking stranger, but at present he was angry and simply must open the vials of his wrath to some one. He met with no repulse. Mr. Wallingford was not one to repulse strangers of even modest competence. He only laughed. A score of jovial wrinkles sprang about his half-closed eyes, and his pink face grew pinker. "Right you are," he agreed. "When I'm in this town I keep everything I've got right in front of me, and if I want to look the other way I edge around on the other side of my grips." Mr. Klug digested this idea for a moment, and then he, too, laughed, though not with the abandon of Mr. Wallingford. He could not so soon forget his wife's umbrella. "It is so," he admitted. "I have been here three days, and every man I had any business with ought to be in _jail_!" A sudden thought as he came to this last word made Mr. Klug lay almost shrieking emphasis upon it, and smack both fists upon his knees. He craned his head forward, his eyes glared through his spectacles, his cheeks puffed out and his mustache bristled. Wallingford surveyed him with careful appraisement. The clothing was ready made, but it was a very good quality of its kind. The man's face was an intelligent one and told of careful, concentrated effort. His hands were lean and rough, the fingers were supple and the outer joints bent back, particularly those of the thumb, which described almost a half circle. The insides of the fingers were seamed and crossed with countless little black lines. From all this the man was a mechanic, and a skilled one. Those fingers dealt deftly with small parts, and years of grimy oil had blackened those innumerable cuts and scratches.