height of the season,' I replied, thinking that the jest would end there,
and that he would now reveal his identity and speak of the tiara. To my
surprise, however, he did nothing of the sort.

"'You have an almost supernatural gift,' he said. 'My name is Bunker. I
_am_ stopping at the Savoy. I _am_ an American. I _was_ rich when I
arrived here, but I'm not quite so bloated with wealth as I was, now that
I have paid my first week's bill. I _have_ lost my watch; such a watch,
too, as you describe, even to the dents. Your only mistake was that the
dents were made by my son John, and not Willie; but even there I cannot
but wonder at you, for John and Willie are twins, and so much alike that
it sometimes baffles even their mother to tell them apart. The watch has
no very great value intrinsically, but the associations are such that I
want it back, and I will pay £200 for its recovery. I have no clew as to
who took it. It was numbered--'

"Here a happy thought struck me. In all my description of the watch I had
merely described my own, a very cheap affair which I had won at a raffle.
My visitor was deceiving me, though for what purpose I did not on the
instant divine. No one would like to suspect him of having purloined his
wife's tiara. Why should I not deceive him, and at the same time get rid
of my poor chronometer for a sum that exceeded its value a hundredfold?"

"Good business!" cried Shylock.

The stranger smiled and bowed.

"Excellent," he said. "I took the words right out of his mouth. 'It was
numbered 86507B!' I cried, giving, of course, the number of my own watch.