"Well, don't give it away," I pleaded. "I hope to be famous some day, and if the American newspaper paragrapher ever got hold of the fact that once in my life I was Hiram, I'd have to Hiram to let me alone."
"That's a bad joke, Hiram," said the visitor, "and for that reason I like it, though I don't laugh. There is no danger of your becoming famous if you stick to humor of that sort."
"Well, I'd like to know," I put in, my anger returning—"I'd like to know who in Brindisi you are, what in Cairo you want, and what in the name of the seventeen hinges of the gates of Singapore you are doing here at this time of night?"
"When you were a baby, Hiram, you had blue eyes," said my visitor. "Bonny blue eyes, as the poet says."
"What of it?" I asked.
"This," replied my visitor. "If you have the
