My companion laughed heartily, yet there was a slight ring of bitterness methought in his laugh.  "No," he said, "I have not spared you in the hope that you will join us; we have managed thus far to do fairly well without your assistance, and I am sanguine enough to believe that, even should you decline to throw in your lot with us, we shall continue to rub along after a fashion without it.  No, that was not my reason for sparing you.  By the by, what is your name, if I may presume to ask?  It is rather awkward to be entertaining a guest whose name, even, one does not know."