"Changed my plans," I acknowledged with a lack of cordiality that failed
to ruffle him. He had hung up his overcoat and installed himself facing
me, and was now making preparations for lighting a fat cigar.

"Well," he commented, with a chuckle of raillery, after this operation,
"the last time I saw you you were in a pretty tight corner, eh? You
can't say it was my fault, either; I'd have put you wise if you'd
listened. But you weren't taking any--you knew better than I did--and
you strafed me, as the Dutchies say, to the kaiser's taste."

"Good advice seldom gets much thanks, I believe," was my grumpy comment,
which he unexpectedly chose to accept as an apology and with a large,
fine, generous gesture to blow away.

"That's all right," he declared. "I'm not holding it against you. We've
all got to learn. Next time you won't be so easy caught, I guess. It
makes a man do some thinking when he gets a dose like you did; and those
chaps at Gibraltar certainly gave you a rough deal!"

"On the contrary," I differed shortly,--I wasn't hunting
sympathy,--"considering all the circumstances, I think they were
extremely fair."

"Not to shoot you on sight? Well, maybe." He was grinning. "But I guess
you weren't hunting for a chance to spend two days cooped up in a cabin
that measured six feet by five."

"It had advantages. One of them was solitude," I responded dryly. "And
it was less unpleasant than being relegated to a six-by-three grave. See
here, I don't enjoy this subject! Suppose we drop it. The fact is, I've