Frothingham searched for Blickenstern--he had a vague idea of taking him to call at the Popes’. But he could not find him. He did see Rontivogli, however--one glance was enough to tell him that Blickenstern’s threats had devoured his high spirits and were eating into his courage. He waited impatiently for the explosion--a five-days’ wait, for it did not come until the following Tuesday. That morning, as Hutt went out of his bedroom after fixing his bath, Joe Wallingford called from their common sitting room: “You’re awake, aren’t you?” “Almost,” answered Frothingham. “Then just read that.” He flung a newspaper through the crack in Frothingham’s door onto his bed. Frothingham took the paper and instantly caught the names of Rontivogli and Blickenstern in the largest headlines. He began eagerly upon a three-column article, the most of it under a New York date line. “Ain’t that cruel?” called Wallingford. “Ain’t it a soaker?” “Um,” replied Frothingham, too busy to pause. It was an account of a suit brought by Blickenstern against Rontivogli to collect a note for twenty-five hundred dollars. The “sensation” lay in a document which Blickenstern had attached to the note and had filed with the papers in the suit--a contract, reading: I, Cosimo di Rontivogli, hereby agree to pay Count Eitel zu Blickenstern twenty-five hundred dollars as soon as he has introduced me to the persons whose names are written upon the back of this contract in my handwriting. And I further agree to pay him an additional twenty-five hundred dollars within one month after I become engaged to an American lady, whether or not I am introduced to her by him. And I further agree to pay him an additional ten thousand dollars within three months after my marriage with an American lady, whether or not he introduced me to her. (Signed) COSIMO DI RONTIVOGLI. This contract, the newspaper said, was in Rontivogli’s autograph, and was witnessed by two clerks at the Holland House; on the back of the contract, and also in Rontivogli’s autograph, were the names of fifteen fashionable and rich New York women. Frothingham glanced at the names--he knew the bearers of most of them--and hastened on into Blickenstern’s interview. “In Europe,” he had said to the reporter, “I should call the fellow out and kill him. Here, where the duel does not exist, I must take the only redress open to me for his betrayal of my friendship. I asked him to pay only the note. In fact he owes me five thousand, as he is now engaged to a Washington heiress. He is a black rascal. If you will send to Milan you can get a fine tale of how he happened to come to your country. I owe all my American friends an apology for introducing him. I confess with shame that but for me he would have known no one.”