aired,
somewhat corpulent gentleman sitting with his back to the light
reading the _Times_. He was clean shaved, with a heavy face modelled
to suggest a rhinoceros. The features were large; the nose swollen
and a little veined with purple, the eyes hidden behind owl-like
spectacles with tortoise-shell rims, and the brow very broad, but
not high. From it abundant white hair was brushed straight back.

Brendon extended his glance elsewhere, but the messenger stopped,
turned, and departed, while the stout man rose, revealing a massive
frame, wide shoulders, and sturdy legs.

"Glad to meet you, Mr. Brendon," he said in a genial voice; then he
shook hands, took off his spectacles, and sat down again.

"This is a pleasure I had meant to give myself before I quitted the
city," declared the big man. "I've heard about you and I've taken
off my hat to you more than once during the war. You might know me,
too."

"Everybody in our business knows you, Mr. Ganns. But I've not come
hero-worshipping to waste your time. I'm proud you're pleased to see
me and it's a great privilege to meet you; but I've looked in this
morning about something that won't wait; and your name is the big
noise in a letter I received from Italy to-day."

"Is that so? I'm bound for Italy in the fall."

"The question is whether this letter may change your plans and send
you there sooner."

The elder stared, took a golden box out of his waistcoat pocket,
opened it, tapped it, and helped himself to a pinch of snuff. The
habit explained his somewhat misshapen nose. It was tobacco, not
alcohol, that lent its exaggerated lustre and hypertrophied outline
to that organ.

"I hate changing my itinerary, once made," replied Mr. Ganns. "I'm
the most orderly cuss on earth. So far as I know, there's but one
man in all Italy is likely to knock my arrangements on the head; and
I'll see him, if all's well, in September next."

Brendon produced Jenny's letter.

"The writer is niece of that man," he said and handed the
communication to Mr. Ganns.

Peter put on his spectacles again and read slowly. Indeed Mark had
never seen a letter read so slowly before. It might have been in
some cryptic tongue which Mr. Ganns could only with difficulty
translate. Having finished he handed the communication back to
Brendon and indicated a desire for silence. Mark lit a cigarette and
sat surveying the other from the corner of his eye.

At last the American spoke.

"What about