bringing him here sounds a little primitive, but success justifies
everything."

Mr. Fentolin raised to his lips and blew softly a little gold whistle
which hung from a chain attached to his waistcoat. Almost immediately
the door opened. A man entered, dressed somberly in black, whose bearing
and demeanour alike denoted the servant, but whose physique was the
physique of a prize-fighter. He was scarcely more than five feet six in
height, but his shoulders were extraordinarily broad. He had a short,
bull neck and long, mighty arms. His face, with the heavy jaw and small
eyes, was the face of the typical fighting man, yet his features seemed
to have become disposed by habit into an expression of gentle, almost
servile civility.

"Meekins," Mr. Fentolin said, "a visitor has arrived. Do you happen to
have noticed what luggage he brought?"

"There is one small dressing-case, sir," the man replied; "nothing else
that I have seen."

"That is all we brought," Gerald interposed.

"You will bring the dressing-case here at once," Mr. Fentolin directed,
"and also my compliments to Doctor Sarson, and any pocket-book or papers
which may help us to send a message to the gentleman's friends."

Meekins closed the door and departed. Mr. Fentolin turned back towards
his nephew.

"My dear boy," he said, "tell me why you look as though there were
ghosts flitting about the room? You are not ill, I trust?"

"Tired, perhaps," Gerald answered shortly. "We were many hours in the
car. I have had no sleep."

Mr. Fentolin's face was full of kindly sympathy.

"My dear fellow," he exclaimed, "I am selfish, indeed! I should not have
kept you here for a moment. You had better go and lie down."

"I'll go directly," Gerald promised. "Can I speak to you for one moment
first?"

"Speak to me," Mr. Fentolin repeated, a little wonderingly. "My dear
Gerald, is there ever a moment when I am not wholly at your service?"

"That fellow Dunster, on the platform, the first moment I spoke to him,
made me feel like a cur," the boy said, with a sudden access of vigour
in his tone. "I told him I was on my way to a golf tournament, and he
pointed to the news about the war. Is it true, uncle, that we may be at
war at any moment?"

Mr. Fentolin sighed.

"A terrible reflection, my dear boy," he admitted softly, "but, alas!
the finger of probability points that way."

"Then what about me?" Gerald exclaimed. "I don't want to complain, but
listen. You drag