"Say, come out here where I can get a better look," says I, draggin' him out of the shadow. "There! Well, of all the----" No wonder I lost my breath; for what I've picked up off the front lawn looks like a stray villain from a comic opera. He's a short, barrel-podded gent, mostly costumed in a long black cape affair and one of these tasseled Turkish caps. About all the features I can make out are a pair of bushy eyebrows, a prominent hooked beak, and a set of crisp, curlin' black whiskers. Hardly the kind to go shinnin' up waterspouts or squeezin' through upper windows. Still, I'd almost caught him in the act. "If that's a disguise you've got on," says I, "it's a bird. And if it ain't--say, let's hear the tale. Who do you claim to be, anyway?" "Many pardons again, Effendi," says he, "but it is my wish to remain--what you call it?--incognito." "Then you don't get your wish," says I. "No John Doe game goes with me. Out with it! Who and what?" "But I make protest," says he. "Rather would I depart on my way." "Ah, ditch that!" says I. "I caught you actin' like a suspicious character. Now, if you can account for yourself, I may turn you loose; but if you don't, it's a case for the police." "Ah, no, no!" he objects. "Not the constables! Allah forbid! I--I will make explanation." "Then let it come across quick," says I. "First off, what name are you flaggin' under?" "At my home," says he, "I am known as Pasha Dar Bunda." "Well, that's some name, all right," says I. "Now the next item, Pasha, is this, What set you to prowlin' around the home of one McCabe?" "Ah, but you would not persist thus far!" says he, pleadin'. "That is a personal thing, something between myself and Allah alone." "You don't say," says I. "Sorry to butt in, but I've got to have it all. Come, now!" "But, Effendi----" he begins. "No, not Fender," says I, "nor Footboard, or anything like that: just plain McCabe." "It is a word of respect," says he, "such as Sir Lord; thus, Effendi McCabe." "Well, cut out the frills and let's get down to brass tacks," says I. "You're here because you're here, I expect. But what else?" He sighs, and then proceeds to let go of a little information. "You have under your roof," says he, "a Meesis Vogel, is it not?" "Vogel?" says I, puzzled for a second. "You don't mean Lindy, do you?" "She was called that, yes," says the Pasha, "Meelinda." "But she's a Miss--old maid," says I. "Ah?" says he, liftin' his bushy eyebrows. "A Mees, eh? It may be so. They tell me at her place of living that she is to be found here. _Voila!_ That is all." "But what about her?" says I. "Where do you come in?" "Once when I am in England," says he, "many years gone past, I know her. I learn that she is in New York. Well, I find myself in America too. I thought to see her. Why not? A glimpse, no more." "Is it the style where you come from," says I, "to gumshoe around and peek in the windows to see old friends?"