When one enters a race-horse in a contest he puts the animal in good condition, he grooms it, he feeds it the best the stable affords, he trains and exercises it carefully. Mitchell had never owned a race-horse, but he reasoned that similar principles should apply to a human being under similar conditions. He had entered a competition, therefore he decided to condition himself physically and mentally for the race. A doped pony cannot run, neither can a worried salesman sell goods. In line with this decision, he took one of the best state-rooms on the _Lucania_, and denied himself nothing that the ship afforded. Every morning he took his exercise, every evening a rub-down. He trained like a fighter, and when he landed he was fit; his muscles were hard, his stomach strong, his brain clear. He went first-class from Liverpool to London; he put up at the Metropole in luxurious quarters. When he stopped to think about that nine hundred and twenty, already amazingly shrunken, he argued bravely that what he had spent had gone to buy condition powders. On the way across he had posted himself so far as possible about the proposed Robinson-Ray plant. He learned that there were to be fifteen batteries of cyanide tanks, two high--eighty-four in all--supported by steel sub- and super-structures; the work to be completed at Krugersdorpf, twenty miles out of Johannesburg, South Africa. The address of the company was No. 42-1/2 Threadneedle Street. Threadneedle Street was somewhere in London, and London was the capital of a place called England. He knew other African contracts were under consideration, but he dismissed them from his thoughts and centered his forces upon this particular job. Once he had taken a definite scent his early trepidations vanished. He became obsessed by a joyous, purposeful, unceasing energy that would not let him rest. The first evening in London he fattened himself for the fray with a hearty dinner, then he strove to get acquainted with his neighbors and his environment. The nervous force within him needed outlet, but he was frowned upon at every quarter. Even the waiter at his table made it patent that his social standing would not permit him to indulge in the slightest intimacy with chance guests of the hotel, while the young Earl who had permitted Mitchell to register at the desk declined utterly to go further with their acquaintance. Louis spent the evening at the Empire, and the next morning, which was Sunday, he put in on the top of a 'bus, laying himself open to the advances of anybody who cared to pay him the slightest attention. But he was ignored; even the driver, who spoke a foreign language, evidently considered him a suspicious character. Like a wise general, Louis reconnoitered No. 42-1/2 Threadneedle Street during the afternoon, noting the lay of the land and deciding upon modes of transportation to and from. Under the pressure of circumstance he chose a Cannon Street 'bus, fare "tuppence."