At a few minutes after twelve on the following morning, Harvey Grimm, very spruce and very debonair, pushed open the swing-doors of the small smoking-room of the Milan, and crossed the room with the obvious intention of proceeding towards the bar. A little welcoming chorus assailed him from a circular lounge in the right-hand corner of the room. Seated there were four of his friends whom at first he scarcely recognised. There was Aaron Rodd with his arm in a sling, a piece of sticking-plaster on his forehead and a thick stick by his side; the poet, with a bandaged head and a shade over his eye; Henriette, looking a little fragile but very animated; and her brother, still in uniform, leaning back in an easy chair by her side. Harvey Grimm stared at them all in blank and ever-increasing astonishment. "Has there been an earthquake?" he asked, as he shook hands and exchanged greetings with everybody, "or have I, in my country seclusion, missed a scrap?" "You have missed the scrap of your life," Cresswell replied eagerly. "You have saved your skin at the expense of untold glory." "Tell me about it," the new-comer begged, as he took his place in the little circle. "Where can one find words?" the poet began expansively. "It was an Homeric sight, a battle royal! It took place in the darkness, upon a slippery wooden wharf, with the black waters of the river beneath, and murderous parasites assailing us on every side. It was an epic of biffing, the glorious triumph of the unfit over the river-side apache. And let me tell you this, my friend Harvey--for an untrained fighter the world doesn't hold a man who can hit so quickly and so hard as our newly established hero, Mr. Aaron Rodd. I have decided that he has earned immortality. I am composing a poem which I shall dedicate to him." "Could I hear what it was all about?" Harvey Grimm asked meekly. "Me," Henrietta sighed. Then they told their story, all of them in turn, except Brinnen, supplying details. Towards the end, however, the poet took up the running and finished alone. "His face," the latter declared, gripping Aaron Rodd by the arm, "was like a pastel in white chalk against the soft background of velvety blackness. Heaven lit the burning light in his eyes. The swing of his right arm was like the pendulum of fate----" "Oh, keep this rot for the poem!" Aaron Rodd interrupted forcibly. "If you want to gas, what about your own swim to the river police-station?" "A series of truly Homeric episodes," the poet assented, with a gentle sigh. "My pen shall give them immortality. I shall not forget to allude to the part which I, too, played in this drama of fog and river. The water was very cold," he added, suddenly finishing his cocktail. "And our friend from the country?" Brinnen asked quietly. "How has he fared?" There was a breathless silence. Harvey Grimm nodded slightly. He glanced around the room, of which they were the only occupants. Both doors were closed.