Rey, better in order.... Bedient had the evening
to himself. In one of the _Calle Real_ cafes, he was attracted by the
face and figure of a young white man, of magnificent proportions and
remarkably clean-cut profile. The stranger sipped iced claret, watched
the natives moving about, and seemed occasionally to forget himself in
his thinking.

He looked more than ever a giant in the midst of the little tropical
people, and seemed to feel his size in the general diminutive setting.
Yet there was balance and fitness about his splendid physical
organization, which suggested that he could be quick as a mink in
action. He chaffed the native who waited upon him, and his face
softened into charming boyishness as he laughed. His mouth was fresh as
a child's, but on a scale of grandeur. Bedient found himself smiling
with him. Then there was that irresistible folding about the eyes when
he laughed, which is Irish as sin, and quite as attractive. Left to
himself he fell to brooding, and his brow puzzled over some matter in
the frank bored way of one pinned to a textbook. Bedient sat down at
the other's table. Acquaintance was as agreeably received as offered.

The stranger's name was Jim Framtree. He had been on the Island for
several weeks, and intended to stay for awhile. He liked Equatoria well
enough--as well, in fact, as a man could like any place, when he was
barred from the real trophy-room in the house of the world, New York.

"I'm sailing for New York in the morning," Bedient said.

Framtree shivered and fell silent.

"You've found work that you like here?" Bedient asked simply.

The other glanced at him humorously, and yet with a bit of intensity,
too,--as if searching for the meaning under such an unadorned question.

"I seem to have caught on with Senor Rey at _The Pleiad_," he replied.

"Ah--"

"I'm afraid you're making a mistake, sir," Framtree added quickly. "I'm
not barred from New York on any cashier matter. You know when something
you want badly--and can't have--is in a town--that isn't the place for
you.... Even if you like that town best on earth.... What I mean is,
I'm not using _The Pleiad_ as a hiding proposition."

"I wasn't thinking of that," Bedient said.

"I suppose it would be natural--down here----"

"But I _saw you first_."

"Um-m."

"I was only thinking," Bedient resumed, "that if the establishment of
Senor Rey palled upon you at any time, I'd like to have you come up and
see me in th