“I don’t know exactly when. The other day. He often passes by here on his way cattle-hunting. Sometimes he looks in for a moment, but sometimes he can’t stay long, only to water his horse. Of course I talk over the principles that have made you found a City here. Don’t you suppose people know about them and talk them over eagerly? They are different enough from the generality of people’s ideas, and Mr. Perseus said they considered you only went a little way into communism, and had a little bit of this and a little bit of that in common, and weren’t at all logical. People sneer at Perfection City, I can assure you.” “And you, doubtless, enjoyed his sneers,” retorted Ezra injudiciously. “No, I didn’t, only I saw what other people say of us. Mr. Perseus, even, once said he’d like to come and be a communist himself, if we were only consistent throughout, and lived up to our principles.” “You may tell your friend Perseus that he would not be a welcome recruit,” said Ezra, in considerable agitation. “I may as well tell you now what I have suspected for some time. I know pretty well who your mysterious Mr. Perseus is. He is a man of the name of Cotterell. I know him very well by sight and better still by reputation. To convince you, I will just mention a point or two about his appearance. He is about five feet ten in height, very fair in complexion, with a yellow moustache, and bright blue eyes, and whenever he takes his hat off you see the blue veins very markedly on his temples. He is, I suppose, what a woman would call a very handsome man, and he usually rides a black horse with a blaze on his face and white hind feet.” “Yes, that’s the man,” said Olive who remembered the horse well, and who moreover recognized the perfect accuracy of her husband’s description. “Very well. Now I will tell you something about his character and history. He is an Englishman and perhaps has been badly brought up. At all events he hasn’t the morals we approve of. I know his libertine London ways. He probably didn’t tell you about it, but I remember very well the poor girl who shot herself the first summer we came here, because Cotterell had abandoned her. If the neighbours had been quite sure of all the facts of the case, there would in all probability have been a shooting party at Cotterell’s house, so I was told. But they were not quite sure so they gave him the benefit of the doubt. Accordingly he still has his handsome face to go on with and maybe wreck more homes. That is the career of Mr. Cotterell, alias Mr. Perseus,” said Ezra with considerable heat. “It was you who gave him the name of Perseus,” replied Olive also much agitated. “He did not appear under a false name of his own accord. And now that you tell me his real name I remember that was the one he gave the first time I saw him, and he asked me if I had ever heard it before.”