'Now,' said he, 'I've got a story for
you. Do you remember the cotillon, or whatever it was, that Cooke gave?
Well, that was all in the Chicago papers, and the "Miles Standish" agent
there saw it, and he knew pretty well that I wasn't West. So he sent me
the papers, just for fun. You may imagine my surprise when I read that
I had been leading a dance out at Mohair, or some such barbarous place in
the northwest. I looked it up on the map (Asquith, I mean), and then I
began to think. I wondered who in the devil it might be who had taken my
name and occupation, and all that. You see, I had just relieved the
company of a little money, and it hit me like a clap of thunder one day
that the idiot was you. But I couldn't be sure. And as long as I had to
get out very soon anyway, I concluded to go to Mohair and make certain,
and then pile things off on you if you happened to be the man.'"
At this point Marian and I were seized with laughter, in which the
Celebrity himself joined. Presently he continued:
"'So I went,' said Allen. 'I provided myself with two disguises, as a
careful man should, but by the time I reached that outlandish hole,
Asquith, the little thing I was mixed up in burst prematurely, and the
papers were full of it that morning. The whole place was out with
sticks, so to speak, hunting for you. They told me the published
description hit you to a dot, all except the scar, and they quarrelled
about that.
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