Shipman's eyes, however, remained half closed. This was all very pretty. The chap had perhaps been a soldier, and attended a military school. He might have taken courses as a war engineer. Yet a clever cracksman or modern safe technician would get up a long lingo like this, especially if he wanted to "put something over," to sound the mental habits, resources and association of the other man, catalogue them for some confidence scheme of his own. Watts crossed one leg over the other and smoked at the sky. His back was to the river which the other man sat facing. His frequent sharp looks were swift and incisive. So far the lawyer had made no effort to find out Colter's errand. There was all the time in the world; meanwhile there was a girl down there with a girl's romantic sense of faith and belief in this man, probably a farceur and trickster. It might be his, Shipman's, bitter job to have to go to this girl as her friend and tell her the truth. "I can see that you take a good deal of interest in such things." Then, not without some marveling on the part of the lawyer, the two plunged into an absorbed discussion of seeps and sheds, of green marl and sandstone, of clay gravel and sand, of mineral waters and sources of potash and phosphates, the problems of tunneling and boring, the opening up of this and that manufacture and industry, the prophecies of latent oils and resins and cements. The lawyer, thoroughly enjoying it, yet obstinately fancied that he sensed some insecurity, some too-varied mingling of knowledge back of it. So, he told himself, might any high-powered confidence man give the right answers and take the right cues. There were books nowadays, compendiums of knowledge. Just reading modern advertisements made a man's mind agile and slick. "So you've been in Greece." Shipman was watchful, at the same time smoothly disarming. He gently flicked the ashes from his cigarette. "You must know Gnossus, Crete, Andritsena, and, let's see," warily, "the name of that mountain temple that the French-man discovered." Colter's face lightened enthusiastically. "Bassae." He looked interestedly into the lawyer's face. The other paused a few moments. "You remember such things?" remarked the lawyer significantly. "Yes," with eagerness, "I do. The Greek hasn't gotten away from me." Colter looked almost happily into Shipman's face. "A great deal comes back along academic lines," he faltered. "Um!" Shipman tossed away his cigarette. He did not light another. He loafed against the back of the tree, his fingers lightly and speculatively tapping on his little silver match-box, his lips half whistling while his mind ran over possible and probable things. He reviewed everything he had ever seen of Colter, particularly the man's eyes that day on the Hackensack, looking into his own with their look of appeal, "Who am I?" Very gently, without turning his head, with voice unemotional, undramatic, the lawyer now asked his own question.