' said Pitman, 'surely not--no more to drink.'

'I don't know what you would be at,' said Michael plaintively. 'It's
positively necessary to do something; and one shouldn't smoke before
meals I thought that was understood. You seem to have no idea
of hygiene.' And he compared his watch with the clock upon the
chimney-piece.

Pitman fell into bitter musing; here he was, ridiculously shorn,
absurdly disguised, in the company of a drunken man in spectacles, and
waiting for a champagne luncheon in a restaurant painfully foreign. What
would his principals think, if they could see him? What if they knew his
tragic and deceitful errand?

From these reflections he was aroused by the entrance of the alien with
the brandies and sodas. Michael took one and bade the waiter pass the
other to his friend.

Pitman waved it from him with his hand. 'Don't let me lose all
self-respect,' he said.

'Anything to oblige a friend,' returned Michael. 'But I'm not going to
drink alone. Here,' he added to the waiter, 'you take it.' And, then,
touching glasses, 'The health of Mr Gideon Forsyth,' said he.

'Meestare Gidden Borsye,' replied the waiter, and he tossed off the
liquor in four gulps.

'Have another?' said Michael, with undisguised interest. 'I never saw a
man drink faster. It restores one's confidence in the human race.

But the waiter excused himself politely, and, assisted by some one from
without, began to bring in lunch.

Michael made an excellent meal, which he washed down with a bottle of
Heidsieck's dry monopole. As for the artist, he was far too uneasy to
eat, and his companion flatly refused to let him share in the champagne
unless he did.

'One of us must stay sober,' remarked the lawyer, 'and I won't give you
champagne on the strength of a leg of grouse. I have to be cautious,' he
added confidentially. 'One drunken man, excellent business--two drunken
men, all my eye.'

On the production of coffee and departure of the waiter, Michael might
have been observed to make portentous efforts after gravity of mien.
He looked his friend in the face (one eye perhaps a trifle off), and
addressed him thickly but severely.

'Enough of this fooling,' was his not inappropriate exordium. 'To
business. Mark me closely. I am an Australian. My name is John Dickson,
though you mightn't think it from my unassuming appearance. You will be
relieved to hear that I am rich, sir, very rich. You can't go into this
sort of thing too thoro