"And then, I always live under an assumed name."

"Like 'Jones'?" I suggested.

"Well, sometimes 'Jones'," he admitted.

"To me," I said, "'Jones' lacks imagination. It's the sort of name you
give when you're arrested for exceeding the speed limit. Why don't you
call yourself Machiavelli?"

"Go on, I'm no dago," said Schnitzel, "and don't you go off thinking
'Jones' is the only disguise I use. But I'm not tellin' what it is, am
I? Oh, no."

"Schnitzel," I asked, "have you ever been told that you would make a
great detective?"

"Cut it out," said Schnitzel. "You've been reading those fairy stories.
There's no fly cops nor Pinks could do the work I do. They're pikers
compared to me. They chase petty-larceny cases and kick in doors. I
wouldn't stoop to what they do. It's being mixed up the way I am
with the problems of two governments that catches me." He added
magnanimously, "You see something of that yourself."

We left the ship at Brooklyn, and with regret I prepared to bid
Schnitzel farewell. Seldom had I met a little beast so offensive, but
his vanity, his lies, his moral blindness, made one pity him. And in ten
days in the smoking-room together we had had many friendly drinks and
many friendly laughs. He was going to a hotel on lower Broadway, and