Franz Lindner held his head very high in the air, and gave a twirl to his cane, as he answered, with much importance, “My line is ze Mammoss Continental Comique; ze serio-comic foreigner; zey call me Frenchy. I sing ze well-known songs in broken English zat are in everybody’s mous—‘Mossoo Robert is my name,’ or ‘Lay-ces-terre Squarre,’ or ‘Ze leetle black dawg,’ or ‘Zat lohvely Matilda.’ I wonder you have not heard of me. ‘Mossoo Robert’ is all ze talk of London. Frank Wilkins writes songs especially for my voice. If you look in ze music shops, you will see on ze covers, ‘Written expressly for Signor Francesco.’ Signor Francesco—zat’s me!” And he tapped his breast, and swelled himself visibly. “I remember to have seen the name, I think,” Will answered, with a slight internal shudder, well pleased, none the less, to give some tardy salve to his companion’s wounded vanity. “I’m glad you’ve got on, and delighted to find you have such kindly recollections of me.” Franz Lindner laughed. “Oh, zat!” he said, snapping his fingers in the air very jauntily. “I was a hot young man zen; I knew little of ze world. You mustn’t sink much of what a young man did in ze days before he knew how Society is managed. I owe you no grudge. We were bose of us younger. Besides, our friend Hausberger has wiped out our old scores. I have transferred to him, entire, all my feelings in ze matter.” “That’s well,” Will replied, anxious indeed to learn whether the Tyroler had heard anything fresh of late years about Linnet. “And Hausberger himself? What of him . . . and his wife? Have you ever knocked up against them?” The Robbler’s brow gathered; his hand clenched his cane hard. It was clear civilisation and cosmopolitanism, however neatly veneered, hadn’t made much serious change in his underlying nature. “Zat rascal!” he exclaimed, bringing his stick down on the pavement with a noisy little thud; “zat rogue; zat liar! If ever I _had_ come across him, it would be bad for his head. Sousand devils, what a man! . . . Here, we’re close to ze Cri; will you come and have a drink? We can talk zis over afterward. I like to offer somesing to a friend new discovered.” “It’s not much in my line,” Will answered, smiling; “but still, for old times’ sake, I’ll go in and have a glass with you.” To say the truth, he was so eager to find out what Franz might have to communicate that he stretched a point for once, and broke through his otherwise invariable rule never to drink anything anywhere except at meal times. Franz stalked along Piccadilly, and strode airily into the Criterion like one who knew his way well about the London restaurants. “What’ll you take?” he asked of Will in an assured tone, which showed the question in English was a very familiar one to him. “Whatever you take yourself,” Will answered, much amused, for the Tyroler was far more at home than himself in a London bar, and far more at his ease with the London barmaid.