"Don't wake me up for a moment, Fen," he answered. "I haven't dreamed anything like it for years." "Dreamed?" repeated Fenton, resuming his interrupted pacing up and down the rug, where the firelight reddened his profile. "Does that mean you like it?--you'll go?" "Would Cinderella go to a ball?" replied the still incredulous Grenville, half seriously. "What's the joker, old chap? What is the worst that could happen at the midnight stroke of twelve?" Fenton came at once and laid his hands on the broad, bony shoulders of his friend. "Have I ever played a joker with you yet?" said he. "Never mind the apology. I forgive you. I understand the compliment. Proposal sounds too good to be true, and all that sort of rubbish. The fact is, old man, I want you to go to Canton, China, and bring home my affianced bride. That's absolutely all there is to the business. You need the change and voyage; I haven't the time to go out there and fetch her myself. Elaine is alone in that heathenish country, miserably heartsick over her uncle's sudden death. She wishes to return at once. I can't let the poor girl come alone. I've no one in the world but you I'd care to send--and there you are." The glow departed from Grenville's eyes. His doubts of any proposition with a woman in the case lurked deep in his level gaze. His face became once more the rugged mask with which he had so long confronted a world persistently gray. The smile he summoned to his lips was more quizzical than mirthful. "It sounds perfectly simple," he replied. "But--you know there are several tales, recorded in prose and verse, of kings who have sent a trusted messenger on precisely such an errand. The joker somehow managed to get into play." "Just so," agreed Fenton, readily. "Three or four times in a thousand cases the girl and the--er--messenger rather thoughtlessly--well, a complication arises. The percentage, however, is excessively low. We'll consider that a negligible possibility. You see, I know both you and Elaine, and I am not a king. The question is--will you go?" Grenville was always amused by Fenton's arguments. "I have seen no statistics on the subject," he admitted. "In this particular instance you think there is not the slightest danger?" "Of finding in old Sid a modern Launcelot?" Fenton turned his friend about till both of them faced down the length of the room. "Well," he added, "to be sure----" Grenville's quick glance had sped to the massive mirror, ten feet away, where both himself and Fenton were reflected from heels to crown. He comprehended in a glance the ill-clothed, thin, ungainly figure he presented: his big hands hanging loosely down, his face too ruggedly modeled, too sallow for attractiveness, his hair too rebellious for order. A Launcelot indeed! The irony of the situation struck home to his sense of humor.