s come yet?"

"Mr. Gibbs, sir?"

"Yes, an American. I have an appointment with him this afternoon. If
he comes in while I am over at Faulkner's just tell him, will you? I
think he's stopping at the Majestic."

The Majestic being the latest rival hotel at Hanbridge, Krupp raised
his eyebrows in a peculiar way and nodded his head.

Just as Krupp had invented a gentleman, so now Louis was inventing
one. Neither Krupp nor Louis guessed the inventive act of the other.
Krupp's act was a caprice, a piece of embroidery, charming and
unnecessary. But Louis was inventing with serious intent, for he had
to make his presence at the Five Towns Hotel on Easter Saturday seem
natural and inevitable.

"And also I want the Cunard list of sailings, and the White Star, too.
There's a Cunard boat from Liverpool on Monday, isn't there?"

"I don't _think_ so, sir," said Krupp, "but I'll see."

"I understood from Mr. Gibbs there was. And I'm going to Liverpool by
that early train to-morrow."

"Sunday, sir?"

"Yes, I must be in Liverpool to-morrow night."

Louis went across to the station to Faulkner's. He considered that
he was doing very well. And after all, why not go to America--not on
Monday, for he was quite aware that no boat left on Monday--but in a
few days, after he had received the whole sum that Thomas Batchgrew
held for him. He could quite plausibly depart on urgent business
connected with new capitalistic projects. He could quite plausibly
remain in America as long as convenient. America beckoned to him. He
remembered all the appetizing accounts that he had ever heard
from American commercial travellers of Broadway and Fifth
Avenue--incredible streets. In America he might treble, quadruple, his
already vast capital. The romance of the idea intoxicated him.

IV

When he got back from Faulkner's with a parcel (which he threw to the
cloak-room attendant to keep) he felt startlingly hungry, and, despite
the early hour, he ordered a steak in the grill-room; and not a steak
merely, but all the accoutrements of a steak, with beverages to match.
And to be on the safe side he paid for the meal at once, with a cheque
for ten pounds, receiving the change in gold and silver, and thus
increasing his available cash to about thirty pounds. Then in the
lounge, with Cuban cigar-smoke in his eyes, and Krupp discoursing to
him of all conceivable Atlantic liners, he wrote a letter to Thomas
Batchgrew and marked it "Very urgent"--w