CHAPTER II

A COMPLETE DISGUISE

David Lockwin has undertaken that Robert Chalmers shall have no
trouble. It was David Lockwin, in theory, who suffered all the ills of
life. In this theory David Lockwin has seriously erred. Robert
Chalmers must bear burdens.

The first burden is a broken nose and a facial appearance strangely
inferior to the look of David Lockwin, the orator. Robert Chalmers
need not disguise himself. He will never be identified. That broken
nose is a distortion that no detective could fathom. Those scarlet
fimbrications under the skin proclaim the toper. Those missing teeth
complete a picture which men do not admire.

David Lockwin was courted. Robert Chalmers is shunned. It wounds a
personal vanity that in David Lockwin's philosophy had not existed. It
is the ideal of disguises, but it does not make Robert Chambers happy.

Why, too, should Robert Chalmers desire so many appurtenances of life
that were in David Lockwin's quarters? If we find Chalmers housed in
comfortable apartments at Gramercy Square, is it not inconsistent that
he should gradually supply himself with cough medicine, turpentine,
alcohol, ammonia, niter, mentholine, camphor spirits, cholagogue,
cholera mixture, whisky, oil, acid, salves and all the aids to health
and cleanliness by which David Lockwin flourished? How slight an
annoyance is the lack of that old-time prescription of Dr. Tarpion,