"Why, my dear friend!" he exclaimed in a sort of muffled scream, and he wrung the honest hand of Mr. Bates as though that gentleman had only that moment rescued him from a combination of drowning and bankruptcy. "And how are you? Sit down if you please. What will you have to drink? You must be--what you call it?--dry. Ha-ha! Sit down. This is good luck. Your friend? I am very pleased. Sit down please. Here!" He clapped his hands with frightful vehemence, and held up a distracted waiter who was in full flight towards a distant table with a loaded tray. Mr. Dainopoulos, gently pressing Mr. Bates and Mr. Spokesly into two chairs, addressed the waiter as Herakles and gave him an order which sounded to his guests like a loose board being ripped forcibly from a nailed-up box. Mr. Spokesly, sitting immediately opposite this monster of hospitality, was not favourably impressed. Mr. Dainopoulos rarely impressed people favourably at first. The long emaciated face had the texture of the uppers of an old buckskin shoe. The bloodshot brown eyes in their reddened sockets seemed in danger of falling into the great pouches of loose skin below them. The mouth, full of sharp yellow teeth and open as though about to yawn, had been slit back to the salience of the jaw at some time and had been sewn up in a sketchy fashion indicated by a white zig-zag scar like a flash of lightning. As he talked this scar worked with disconcerting vivacity. Mr. Spokesly turned with relief to the whiskies and sodas which appeared, borne by the industrious Herakles. "And how is business?" asked Mr. Bates, having lifted his glass and set it down empty. Beyond three or four sherries and bitters and a glass of gin and vermouth, before coming ashore, he had drunk nothing all day. He was thirsty. "And how is business?" A simple question. And yet Mr. Dainopoulos did not render a simple answer. He regarded Mr. Bates for a moment and then turned his head cautiously to right and left. Preserving an impressive silence he caught Mr. Spokesly's eyes and smiled, taking a suck at his _narghileh_. It was at this juncture that two French naval officers, seated at a distant table and smoking cigarettes in long ivory holders (to keep the smoke from their beards), exchanged opinions upon the folly of their British allies in permitting the officers of ships to come ashore in civilian attire. "You are quite sure, of course, that they _are_ officers of a transport?" said the elder, observing with attention. "Quite, my commandant. From the _Tanganyika_, arrived to-day. The little one I know well. The other I observed upon the forecastle as she anchored." "But what are they doing in company with _him_?" The lieutenant raised his shoulders. "I imagine, my commandant, that they do a little business in hashish. But in any case it is not what you imagine. The English do not spy." "But Dainopoulos may use them, eh?"