“‘You have an almost supernatural gift,’ he said. ‘My name is Bunker. I am stopping at the Savoy. I _am_ an American. I _was_ rich when I arrived here, but I’m not quite so bloated with wealth as I was, now that I have paid my first week’s bill. I _have_ lost my watch; such a watch, too, as you describe, even to the dents. Your only mistake was that the dents were made by my son John, and not Willie; but even there I cannot but wonder at you, for John and Willie are twins, and so much alike that it sometimes baffles even their mother to tell them apart. The watch has no very great value intrinsically, but the associations are such that I want it back, and I will pay £200 for its recovery. I have no clew as to who took it. It was numbered—’ “Here a happy thought struck me. In all my description of the watch I had merely described my own, a very cheap affair which I had won at a raffle. My visitor was deceiving me, though for what purpose I did not on the instant divine. No one would like to suspect him of having purloined his wife’s tiara. Why should I not deceive him, and at the same time get rid of my poor chronometer for a sum that exceeded its value a hundredfold?” “Good business!” cried Shylock. The stranger smiled and bowed. “Excellent,” he said. “I took the words right out of his mouth. ‘It was numbered 86507B!’ I cried, giving, of course, the number of my own watch. “He gazed at me narrowly for a moment, and then he smiled. ‘You grow more marvellous at every step. That was indeed the number. Are you a demon?’ “‘No,’ I replied. ‘Only something of a mind-reader.’ “Well, to be brief, the bargain was struck. I was to look for a watch that I knew he hadn’t lost, and was to receive £200 if I found it. It seemed to him to be a very good bargain, as, indeed, it was, from his point of view, feeling, as he did, that there never having been any such watch, it could not be recovered, and little suspecting that two could play at his little game of deception, and that under any circumstances I could foist a ten-shilling watch upon him for two hundred pounds. This business concluded, he started to go. “‘Won’t you have a little Scotch?’ I asked, as he started, feeling, with all that prospective profit in view, I could well afford the expense. ‘It is a stormy night.’ “‘Thanks, I will,’ said he, returning and seating himself by my table—still, to my surprise, keeping his hat on.