"Busy, I see," yawned Poinsett, with languid politeness. "Don't let me disturb you. I thought your man said you were disengaged. Must have made a mistake."
Mr. Dumphy was forced to lay aside his pen, and rise, inwardly protesting.
"You don't know me by my card. I have the advantage, I think," continued the young man with a smile, "even in the mere memory of faces. The last time I saw you was--let me see--five years ago. Yes! you were chewing a scrap of buffalo hide to keep yourself from starving."
"Philip Ashley!" said Mr. Dumphy in a low voice, looking hastily around, and drawing nearer the stranger.
"Precisely," returned Poinsett somewhat impatiently, raising his own voice. "That was my _nom de guerre_. But Dumphy seems to have been your real name after all."
If Dumphy had conceived any idea of embarrassing Poinsett by the suggestion of an _alias_ in his case, he could have dismissed it after this half-contemptuous recognition of his own proper cognomen. But he had no such idea. In spite of his utmost effort he felt himself gradually falling into the same relative position--the same humble subordination he had accepted five years before. It was useless to think of his wealth, of his power, of his surroundings. Here in his own bank parlour he was submissively waiting the will and pleasure of this stranger. He made one more desperate attempt to regain his lost prestige.
"You have some business with me, eh? Poinsett!" He commenced the sentence with a dignity, and ended it with a familiarity equally inefficacious.
"Of course," said Poinsett carelessly, shifting his legs before the fire. "Shouldn't have called otherwise on a man of such affairs at such a time. You are interested, I hear, in a mine recently discovered at One Horse Gulch on the Rancho of the Blessed Innocents. One of my clients holds a grant, not yet confirmed, to the Rancho."
"I believe that is not important nor essential for you to know until we make a formal claim," returned Arthur quietly, "but I don't mind satisfying your curiosity. It's Miss Dolores Salvatierra."
Mr. Dumphy felt relieved, and began with gathering courage and brusqueness, "That don't affect"----
"Your mining claim; not in the least," interrupted Arthur quietly, "I am not here to press or urge any rights that we may have. We may not even submit the grant for patent. But my client would like to know something of the present tenants, or, if you will, owners. You represent them, I think? A man and wife. The woman appears first as a spinster, assuming to be a Miss Grace Conroy, to whom an alleged transfer of an alleged grant was given. She next appears as the wife of one Gabriel Conroy, who is, I believe, an alleged brother of the alleged Miss Grace Conroy. You'll admit, I think, it's a pretty mixed business, and would make a pretty bad showing in court. But this adjudicature we are not yet prepared to demand. What we want to know is this--and I came to you, Dumphy, as the man most able to tell us. Is the sister or the brother real--or are they both impostors? Is there a legal marriage? Of course _your_ legal interest is not jeopardised in any event."