His hand was extended to greet me, but as he looked at my face his arm dropped in surprise. “Your name, please?” he demanded, with a business-like clip to his voice, at the same time picking up and glancing quickly at three or four cards and slips of paper that were on the corner of his desk. “I am the attorney for ancient peoples,” I announced, smiling, “come to thank the New World for its kindness to a broken-legged man.” Instantly Mr. Blodgett smiled too, and again extended his hand. “Glad to see you,” he said. “Sit down.” Then looking at me keenly, he added, “You’ve done a lot of bleaching or scrubbing since we met.” “In the interval my face has been hidden from the sun-god of my fathers.” “Ah!” Then his Americanism cropped out by a question: “Are you European or Asiatic?—for you are too dark to be the one, and too white to be the other.” “My parents were American, and I was born in New York.” “The deuce you were! Then why were you masquerading in Arab dress and with a brown face in Tangier, and why did you say you came from some mountains in Asia?” “I was for the time an Arab, and I was last from the Altai Mountains,” I explained, and smilingly added, “Is my explanation satisfactory?” “Well, I suppose you spoke by the book,” he replied. “Wherever you were born, I’m glad to see—Hold on!” he cried, interrupting his own speech. “Why did you call yourself Dr. Rudolph Hartzmann, of Leipzig, if you were an American?” “I did not,” I denied, startled by his question, for my identity with the pseudonym was known only to my professors and publishers. “You weren’t living in Tangier under the name of Hartzmann?” he inquired. “No.” “Then how came it that when my servant was sent to leave some fruit and flowers for you and inquire your name, he was told that you were Dr. Rudolph Hartzmann, of Leipzig?” “Are you serious?” I questioned, as much puzzled as he for the moment. “Never more so. I remember our astonishment to think that any European should have so dark a skin and live in the native quarter.” “Mr. Blodgett,” I explained, “I did not know till this moment that a pen name I have used to sign my writings had been given you, but it was a joke of my father’s to register me under it, and my only theory is that he had given some one in the hotel that name, and, by mischance, your servant was misinformed.” He was too good a business man to look as skeptical as he probably felt, and merely asked, “What is your real name, then?” “Donald Maitland, son of William Maitland.” His eyes gave a startled wink and he screwed his lips into position for a whistle, but checking the inclination, he merely turned his revolving-chair so that he looked out of a window. He sat thus for a moment, and then, facing me, he questioned, with a sudden curtness of voice and manner, “What is your business with me?” “I have taken the liberty of calling on the supposition that you are a friend of Miss Walton.” “I am.”