taken an undesirable suburb for
a desirable one, a very easy mistake for a foreigner to make; and he was
delighted at the cheapness of the house, the greenness of the old lawn,
the height of the grimy trees within the red brick wall.

He lived there all one summer, and the cement smoke got into his throat
in the autumn and gave him asthma, for which complaint he had obviously
been designed by Providence, for he had no neck. He used the Signal
House occasionally from Saturday till Monday. Then he gave it up
altogether, and tried to sell it. It stood empty for some years, while
the Russian banker extended his business and lived virtuously elsewhere.
Then he suddenly began using the house again as a house of recreation,
and brought his foreign servants, and his foreign friends and their
foreign servants, to stay from Saturday till Monday.

And all these persons behaved in an odd, Continental way, and played
bowls on the lawn at the back of the house on Sundays. The neighbors
could hear them but could see nothing, owing to the thickness of the
grimy trees and the height of the old brick wall. But no one worried
much about the Signal House; for they were a busy people who lived all
around, and had to earn their living, in addition to the steady and
persistent assuagement of a thirst begotten of cement dust and the
pungent smell of bone manure. One or two local amateurs had made sure
of the fact that there was nothing in the house that would repay a
burglarious investigation, which, added to the fact that the police
station is only a few doors off, tended to allay a natural curiosity as
to the foreign gentleman's possessions.

When he came he drove in a close cab from Gravesend Station, and usually
told the cabman when his services would again be required. He came
thus with three friends one summer afternoon, some years ago, and came
without luggage. The servants, who followed in a second cab, carried
some parcels, presumably of refreshments. These grave gentlemen were,
it appeared, about to enjoy a picnic at the Signal House--possibly a
tea-picnic in the Russian fashion.

The afternoon was fine, and the gentlemen walked in the garden at the
back of the house. They were walking thus when another cab stopped at
the closed iron gate, and the banker hurried, as fast as his build would
allow, to open the side door and admit a seafaring man, who seemed to
know his bearings.

"Well, mister," he said, in a Northern voice, "anot