TWO:He sat down on the couch again. "Perhaps it is just as well that I did believe in the Clockwork man from the first; for while you have been going through these unpleasant experiences I have been thinking very hard, and have actually arrived at certain conclusions which are, I venture to think, amply confirmed by your story. That is why I have shown no surprise at your statements. The Clockwork[Pg 175] man is indeed true to his type as I have imagined him; he is the very embodiment of the future as I have long envisaged it."He was not so handsome as his brother, though younger. His affability came by gleams. I asked how that good fortune had come to my mother, and he replied that there was hardly time now for another story; we might be interrupted--by the Yankees. "Ask the young lady you met yesterday evening," he added, with a knowing gleam, and smiled me away; and when by and by the enemy did interrupt, I had forgiven him. Whoever failed to answer my questions, in those days, incurred my forgiveness.
