posted volume is your
lordship's private residency."

All's English education had been secured in the laboratory of an
English scientist in Sierra Leone, and long association with that
learned man had endowed him with a vocabulary at once impressive and
recondite.

Bones gave a resigned sigh.

"I'm expecting----" he began, when a silvery bell tinkled.

It was silvery because the bell was of silver. Bones looked up, pulled
down his waistcoat, smoothed back his hair, fixed his eye-glass, and
took up a long quill pen with a vivid purple feather.

"Show them in," he said gruffly.

"Them" was one well-dressed young man in a shiny silk hat, who, when
admitted to the inner sanctum, came soberly across the room, balancing
his hat.

"Ah, Mr. Pole--Mr. Fred Pole." Bones read the visitor's card with the
scowl which he adopted for business hours. "Yes, yes. Be seated, Mr.
Pole. I shall not keep you a minute."

He had been waiting all the morning for Mr. Pole. He had been weaving
dreams from the letter-heading above Mr. Pole's letter.

Ships ... ships ... house-flags ... brass-buttoned owners....

He waved Mr. Fred to a chair and wrote furiously. This frantic
pressure of work was a phenomenon which invariably coincided with the
arrival of a visitor. It was, I think, partly due to nervousness and
partly to his dislike of strangers. Presently he finished, blotted the
paper, stuck it in an envelope, addressed it, and placed it in his
drawer. Then he took up the card.

"Mr. Pole?" he said.

"Mr. Pole," repeated that gentleman.

"Mr. _Fred_ Pole?" asked Bones, with an air of surprise.

"Mr. Fred Pole," admitted the other soberly.

Bones looked from the card to the visitor as though he could not
believe his eyes.

"We have a letter from you somewhere," he said, searching the desk.
"Ah, here it is!" (It was, in fact, the only document on the table.)
"Yes, yes, to be sure. I'm very glad to meet you."

He rose, solemnly shook hands, sat down again and coughed. Then he
took up the ivory paper-knife to chew, coughed again as he detected the
lapse, and put it down with a bang.

"I thought I'd like to come along and see you, Mr. Tibbetts," said Fred
in his gentle voice; "we are so to speak, associated in business."

"Indeed?" said Bones. "In-deed?"

"You see, Mr. Tibbetts," Fred went on, with a sad smile, "your lamented
uncle, before he went out of business, sold us his ships. He died a
month later."