all these small rooms, you will be
aware from time to time of eyes and a bald head above the ground glass.
If you are nobody, eyes and bald head will prove to be the property of a
gentleman who does not know you, or knows you and pretends that he does
not. If you are somebody, your solitude will depend upon your
reputation.

There are quite a number of bald heads in the Talleyrand Club--bald
heads surmounting youthful, innocent faces. The innocence of these
gentlemen is quite remarkable. Like a certain celestial, they are
"childlike and bland"; they ask guileless questions; they make blameless
mistakes in respect to facts, and require correction, which they receive
meekly. They know absolutely nothing, and their thirst for information
is as insatiable as it is unobtrusive.

The atmosphere is vivacious with the light sound of many foreign
tongues; it bristles with the ephemeral importance of cheap titles. One
never knows whether one's neighbor is an ornament to the Almanac de
Gotha, or a disgrace to a degenerate colony of refugees.

Some are plain Messieurs, Senores, or Herren. Bluff foreigners with
upright hair and melancholy eyes, who put up philosophically with a
cheaper brand of cigar than their souls love. Among the latter may be
classed Karl Steinmetz--the bluffest of the bluff--innocent even of his
own innocence.

Karl Steinmetz in due course reached England, and in natural sequence
the smoking-room--room B on the left as you go in--of the Talleyrand.

He was there one evening after an excellent dinner taken with humorous
resignation, smoking the largest cigar the waiter could supply, when
Claude de Chauxville happened to have nothing better or nothing worse to
do.

De Chauxville looked through the glass door for some seconds. Then he
twisted his waxed mustache and lounged in. Steinmetz was alone in the
room, and De Chauxville was evidently--almost obviously--unaware of his
presence. He went to the table and proceeded to search in vain for a
newspaper that interested him. He raised his eyes casually and met the
quiet gaze of Karl Steinmetz.

"Ah!" he exclaimed.

"Yes," said Steinmetz.

"You--in London?"

Steinmetz nodded gravely.

"Yes," he repeated.

"One never knows where one has you," Claude de Chauxville went on,
seating himself in a deep arm-chair, newspaper in hand. "You are a bird
of passage."

"A little heavy on the wing--now," said Steinmetz.

He laid his newspaper down on his stout k