“My dear fellow, don’t be vexed with me. I am so eaten up with the mad helplessness of it all that I resent the least prying by sceptical outsiders. But if Hooper, or any other man on God’s earth, can save me and others from the doom which awaits one or all of us, lay me on the dissecting table before him. I am ready.” Knowledge on his part, and a simple imitative action on mine, turned our eyes simultaneously towards the revolving door of the hotel. Mr. Frank E. Hooper entered, spick and span as if a troubled channel and grimy railway were not. He was followed by a rotund personage, olive-green in complexion, bearing all the outward and visible signs of an inward Jewishness. The sight of this stranger gave me an indefinable thrill, a compound of surprise and fear, with, perhaps, a touch of bewilderment. Why, I cannot tell, but I knew him instantly. I was so taken aback that I found myself staring stupidly at Hooper, who advanced with a cheery cry: “Well now, who’d have thought to find you both here, and lookin’ so fine and dandy, too. This is real good.” He winked at us portentously. “That’s Steindal!” he muttered in a stage aside. “Met him in the Gare du Nord, and talked him into comin’ to this hotel. Guessed you’d like to see him.” “We are delighted,” said Karl, gently. “Won’t you introduce us?” “Eh? Oh, this is great. Mr. Steindal! lend me thine ear a moment. I want to make you and my good friends known to one another. Mr. Karl Grier--” No sooner did Steindal hear Karl’s name than he flushed uncomfortably and backed away. He was perturbed so greatly that Hooper’s flow of language stopped abruptly. But Karl advanced a pace, and there was a steady dominance in his glance which seemed to fascinate while it disconcerted the Jew. “It is, indeed, a pleasure to meet you,” he said. “Come and dine with us. Come just as you are; and you, too, Hooper. It is too late to change.” Without another spoken word he wheeled towards the restaurant, walking across the vestibule with head erect and hands clasped behind his back. And we three followed, Steindal with the sulkiness of a stricken dog, Hooper somewhat awed by the unexpected outcome of the surprise he had planned, and I--well, I felt as though some wizard had converted me into an electric eel. CHAPTER XX STEINDAL GIVES A PUBLIC PERFORMANCE “Say,” whispered Hooper to me, “Karl looks like a high priest of Baal leading Steindal to slaughter as a sacrificial bull.” I babbled something, it matters not what. All my eyes were bent on the strange meeting between those two. Karl, suavely stern, motioned the Jew to a chair at a table laid for four. They faced each other. Hooper and I took the vacant places. Jules, of course, hastened to us, and his attendant sprites relieved the travelers of overcoats and hats.