it.

His lips smiled, but the smile died beneath a neatly waxed moustache
and reached no higher on the mask-like face. Then he disappeared in the
outer darkness between the two doors, and the handle made no noise in
turning.

In a few minutes an attendant, in a gay uniform, came in by the same
door, without seeking to suppress the clatter of his boots on the oak
floor.

"Hola! monsieur," he said, in a loud voice. And Mr. John Turner crossed
his legs and leant farther back in the chair, preparatory to opening his
eyes, which he did directly on the new-comer's face, without any of that
vague flitting hither and thither of glance which usually denotes the
sleeper surprised.

The eyes were of a clear blue, and Mr. Turner looked five years younger
with them open than with them shut. But he was immensely stout.

"Well, my friend," he said, soothingly; for the Minister's attendant had
a truculent ministerial manner. "Why so much noise?"

"The Minister will see you."

John Turner yawned and reached for his hat.

"The Minister is pressed for time."

"So was I," replied the Englishman, who spoke perfect French, "when
I first sat down here, half an hour ago. But even haste will pass in
time."

He rose, and followed the servant into the inner room, where he returned
the bow of a little white-bearded gentleman seated at a huge desk.

"Well, sir," said this gentleman, with the abrupt manner which has
come to be considered Napoleonic on the stage or in the political world
to-day. "Your business?"

The servant had withdrawn, closing the door behind him with an emphasis
of the self-accusatory sort.

"I am a banker," replied John Turner, looking with an obese deliberation
toward one of the deep windows, where, half-concealed by the heavy
curtain, a third person stood gazing down into the street.

The Minister smiled involuntarily, forgetting his dignity of a
two-years' growth.

"Oh, you may speak before Monsieur," he said.

"But I am behind him," was the immediate reply.

The gentleman leaning against the window-breast did not accept this
somewhat obvious invitation to show his face. He must have heard it,
however, despite an absorption which was probably chronic; for he made
a movement to follow with his glance the passage of some object of
interest in the street below. And the movement seemed to supply John
Turner with the information he desired.

"Yes, I am a banker," he said, more genially.

The Minister ga