room to the main floor, going on towards the front windows. At the
sample tables he filled his pockets with wheat, and once at the windows
raised the sash and spread the pigeons' breakfast on the granite ledge.

While he was watching the confused fluttering of flashing wings, that
on the instant filled the air in front of the window, he was all at
once surprised to hear a voice at his elbow, wishing him good morning.

"Seem to know you, don't they?"

Cressler turned about.

"Oh," he said. "Hullo, hullo--yes, they know me all right. Especially
that red and white hen. She's got a lame wing since yesterday, and if I
don't watch, the others would drive her off. The pouter brute yonder,
for instance. He's a regular pirate. Wants all the wheat himself. Don't
ever seem to get enough."

"Well," observed the newcomer, laconically, "there are others."

The man who spoke was about forty years of age. His name was Calvin
Hardy Crookes. He was very small and very slim. His hair was yet dark,
and his face--smooth-shaven and triangulated in shape, like a
cat's--was dark as well. The eyebrows were thin and black, and the lips
too were thin and were puckered a little, like the mouth of a
tight-shut sack. The face was secretive, impassive, and cold.

The man himself was dressed like a dandy. His coat and trousers were of
the very newest fashion. He wore a white waistcoat, drab gaiters, a
gold watch and chain, a jewelled scarf pin, and a seal ring. From the
top pocket of his coat protruded the finger tips of a pair of unworn
red gloves.

"Yes," continued Crookes, unfolding a brand-new pocket handkerchief as
he spoke. "There are others--who never know when they've got enough
wheat."

"Oh, you mean the 'Unknown Bull.'"

"I mean the unknown damned fool," returned Crookes placidly.

There was not a trace of the snob about Charles Cressler. No one could
be more democratic. But at the same time, as this interview proceeded,
he could not fight down nor altogether ignore a certain qualm of
gratified vanity. Had the matter risen to the realm of his
consciousness, he would have hated himself for this. But it went no
further than a vaguely felt increase of self-esteem. He seemed to feel
more important in his own eyes; he would have liked to have his friends
see him just now talking with this man. "Crookes was saying to-day--"
he would observe when next he met an acquaintance. For C. H. Crookes
was conceded to be the "biggest man" in La