Northcote followed his companion into one of the smaller and quieter but not the less gilded and luxurious rooms. Mr. Whitcomb, who even in his own person did not disdain the panoply of fashion, had the unconquerable nonchalance of bearing which is the first credential to the public respect. “I want Jools,” he said to the first waiter he met. The waiter bowed low and said ingratiatingly, “Yes, sare.” He darted away in quest of that personage without an attempt to maintain the few rags of dignity that attend his calling. There was, indeed, a strain of the magician in this wonderful Mr. Whitcomb. It would not have occurred to Northcote to use the formula “I want Jools,” any more than it did to Ali Baba to cry “Open Sesame!” at the portals of the cave of the Forty Robbers. Jools was the head waiter, a man of the first distinction, with a small imperial, the envy and the proud despair of all the compatriots who shared his exile in an alien country. It had the choice perfection which art is sometimes able to superimpose upon nature. Jools was of slight, even mean, physique, but he had the ease of bearing which comes of having been somebody for several generations. He held the key to the finest cellar in London, as his father before him had held the key to the finest cellar of Paris, and his grandfather of that of Vienna. Jools was an aristocrat of aristocrats, and one versed in the ways of his order would almost have divined it from the amiable humility with which he came forward to receive one of other clay. “How do, Jools?” said Northcote’s companion, with his inimitable gift of manner. “Nasty night. Let us have a quart of your Château Margaux. What was that you gave me before?” Jools screwed up his furtive brown eyes in deep contemplation. “Et would be a seventy-one, sare,” he said, rubbing softly a forefinger along his chin. “I don’t know what it was,” said Mr. Whitcomb, royally, “and I don’t care, so long as it is the best you have in the place.” An air of magnificence which prosperity had conferred upon the solicitor touched a chord in the proud soul of Jools. “I haf a seventy-three, sare,” said this aristocrat, with a not too ductile absence of condescension, which he reserved for the society of his equals. “That sounds all right,” said the solicitor. “We still number you among the few eminent Christians we have in London at the present time.” Jools bowed and smiled softly, but an expression of sorrow was seen to overspread his mat complexion. “Ef I had known before, sare, I would haf had it decanted.” “We must all abase ourselves before the despotism of necessity,” said the solicitor’s hollow-eyed companion, who was already under the stimulus of an intense anticipation. “She has reverence for nothing. Even your Château Margaux ’73, which no doubt is divine, must forego the rights and trappings of its royalty.”