o the officer's face as he conversed with
his friends at the Cercle Militaire. Ringing off with a fat chuckle he
demanded in rapid French how his old one was making it. The old one, who
was Mr. Dainopoulos, made no definite complaint, but commented on the
fact that a man could not sit in Floka's and take a little drink with a
friend without a certain person, with a luxuriant beard, taking especial
note of it. The _ajutant_ threw himself back in his chair, tipped it,
his heels grinding the boards, and grunted. That, he mumbled, was only
to be expected of Pere Lefrote. Well, what was it now? Mr. Dainopoulos
indicated his companion, an officer from the English ship arrived
to-day, now anchored in the _rade_. "What ship?" muttered the officer,
looking Mr. Spokesly over as though he were some unsavoury mongrel. From
Alexandria, said Mr. Dainopoulos, skilfully evading such an impossible
word as _Tanganyika_. "Ah-ha!" crowed the officer, transferring his cold
regard to his old one. So the old one was on that game again. By the
sacred blue, he was a great old cock. And the officer, getting up,
expressed his conviction very fast that if the truth were only revealed,
the old one could do a neat business in _poulets de luxe_ as well. What?
The truculent officer, halting at the door, his thumb and finger busy
with his moustache, looked back over his shoulder at his old one. No,
said the latter, he merely repeated what he had said so many times. He
knew none of those creatures, though he admitted three had arrived on
the transport _Jumieges_ that morning. Was that so? Where were they,
then? At the Omphale or the Tour Blanche? Come now! Mr. Dainopoulos lit
a cigarette and as he trod carefully on the smoking match murmured his
conviction that the ladies, whom a friend of his had seen land at
Venizelos Steps, entered automobiles, and might not be found at the
Omphale for some time. The officer drummed at the door and nodded. True,
but the old one knew of some ravishing creature surely who would respond
to the delicate attentions of a lonely exile. A _marraine_, in fact. But
the old one had no such clients. He was a man of business purely. And if
it could be arranged his friend here would like to be put on board.

The officer, a frustrated and disappointed sensualist, whose imagination
was tantalized but never fed by the fact that he was in the fabled
Orient, the abode of lovely Circassians and other houris, nodded
agreement. He owed Mr.