Tom Simpson sat at his desk—an old-fashioned sloping-top desk of ink-stained mahogany—in the back office; where, despite the aid of reflectors, set slanting in the one high-up window, green-shaded electrics burned for nearly ten months of the year. A bluff man of fifty was Tom, fresh-complexioned and brown-bearded still; calm, of a certain limited shrewdness, but unimaginative; dressed in black morning-coat, City-tailored; gold “Albert” festooned across his ample paunch, key-chain drooping from trouser-pocket. “Well?” he asked, looking up from the smeared typewritten pages of the Havana mail. “Got it,” said Peter laconically; hanging hat, coat and stick on the brass-hook behind the glass door—which he carefully closed. “No!” Interrogatively. “Yes.” “Well I’m damned.” Simpson glanced admiringly at his partner. He never quite understood Peter; had always been a little afraid of his “recklessness”; had—for that reason—refused to invest any capital in the Nirvana cigarette-factory. Peter drew the contract from his breast-pocket; and they scrutinized it together. It was written in English, rather Teutonic English, but absolutely clear. “Who drew this up?” asked Simpson. “I did. A German lawyer went over it for me; but it’s enforceable in London.” “Good.” They plunged into details. “What’s this. Five thousand pounds open account? Anything over that to be drawn for at six months? We don’t want all that credit, Peter.” “Yes, we do. I may have to take some more of my capital out. The factory, you know.” Simpson put down the contract. “Of course it’s not for me to advise you: but aren’t you getting just a little out of your depth?” “You charge me with interest on the money which I draw out,” began Peter, temper swiftly frayed. Then relenting, “Oh, it’s quite all right, old man, I know what I’m doing.” A huge black outline loomed up against the glass door, knocked, said in a guttural voice “May I come in?” Entered Julius Hagenburg: top-hatted, black-moustached, patent-booted, flower at buttonhole: Hagenburg, naturalized Englishman, undoubtedly the best salesman of fine cigars in Europe—and the worst payer. What Peter’s investment in Nirvana meant to Simpson, Simpson’s credit to Hagenburg meant to Peter. Yet it was a profitable account, amazingly so. Hagenburg rarely bought less than thirty thousand cigars at a clip; would pay anything from three to seven pounds a hundred for them. How he disposed of the goods, neither of the partners knew; though Peter, who had met the man frequently on his own Continental cigarette-expeditions, had a shrewd idea that most of the cigars—which went, under bond, in plain cases, from London to Amsterdam—eventually found their way, at entirely fictitious prices, to such places as the Sporting Club in Monte Carlo, the Jockey Club in Vienna, and even as far as the gipsy-haunted private rooms in the night-restaurants of St. Petersburg.