"
"If you gentlemen are working up a joke," replied Tompkins, "I hope I
shall soon begin to see the fun; but if you're not, why then, Mr. Bagley,
I should earnestly advise you to take something for this."
"Oh, just wait, Mr. Tompkins. You're a well-informed man, I believe. Now
let's go slow. You won't deny the possibility of a man's changing his
appearance by surgical and other means, in this scientific age, so as
almost to defy recognition?"
"I deny the possibility of his doing such a thing so as to defy
recognition by _me_. So much for your general question. As to this
gentleman's being the person I once met as Murray Davenport, I can only
wonder what sort of a hoax you're trying to work."
Bagley looked his feelings in silence. Giving Barry Tompkins up, he said
to Larcher: "I don't see any lawyer here that I'm acquainted with. I was
a bit previous, getting let in to decide that bet to-night."
"Perhaps Mr. Tompkins knows some lawyer here, to whom he will introduce
you," suggested Turl.
"You want a lawyer?" said Tompkins. "There are three or four here. Over
there's Doctor Brady, the medico-legal man; you've heard of him, I
suppose,--a well-known criminologist."
"I should think he'd be the very man for you," said Turl to Bagley.
"Besides being a lawyer, he knows surgery, and he's an authority on the
habits of criminals."
"Is he a friend of yours?" asked Bagley, at the same time that his eyes
lighted up at the chance of an auditor free from the incredulity of
ignorance.
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