O’Shea was ruined. This was the idea that ultimately came to the top and stayed there. O’Shea was ruined. The blind love of a child-woman had wrecked the best man it had ever been my lot to know. She had stayed for O’Shea. No one suspected it. But I knew. This was the sequel. Lonely in my knowledge of all it might mean--when, willy-nilly, I should have surrendered the portfolio--I tramped on. A great, cold jewel, the moon lighted my way. By a stagnant cistern, green with slime, I pulled up. I had walked half the distance to the Casino. This cistern was infested by poisonous insects with nasty habits in their tails and a social custom of leaving red-hot visiting cards. I turned back, scratching viciously. A party homeward bound to Reid’s in a car offered me a lift. I thanked them but preferred to walk. “… Having no further use for this officer’s services.” Yes, I could save him from that. The hall porter said that Major O’Shea was in his room. Therefore, having a curiosity respecting Macalister, I took up a strategic position on a shadowed bench in that miniature palm grove which commands the porch. I told the porter where he could find me. I had waited but a short time when Macalister arrived, in the pomp and circumstance of a glorious Farman. A chauffeur, whose pedigree connected with apes more recently than usual, drove the red torpedo in at the gate with much skill and even more noise. I stood up to see Macalister alight. He entered Reid’s proprietorially. He was in evening kit, wore a straw hat boasting a band of well-known colours, to which he was not entitled, and smoked a successful cigar decorated with what looked like the Order of the Garter. If he was nervous he showed no sign of the fact. One has heard many jokes aimed at the courage of the Jew. Sometimes from members of his own race. In justice to one whom I shall always dislike, I wish to say that Julian Macalister, bearing a Scottish name, was fearless as any man who ever wore the tartan. Caliban drove the Farman out into the road again, and I settled down with my pipe to await O’Shea’s summons. It came sooner than I had expected. Mr. Macalister was all of a man of business. “Major O’Shea asks you to step up to his room, sir,” said the hall porter. Knocking out my pipe, I made my way upstairs. On the side of the angels though I might be, I found myself not wholly at ease. I rapped at O’Shea’s door and walked in. Macalister was seated in an armchair, a stump of fat cigar between his teeth. The band was absent. I presumed that he had smoked it. O’Shea stood, facing me, by the open window. “I hope I have not dragged you from pleasant company. But Mr. Macalister here has presumed to question a statement of mine.” “Cut it out,” said Macalister. “This is business.”