It was a “quiet” time; but not so bad as he had anticipated. Jameson’s customers, disregarding the moratorium, paid their accounts; gave niggling orders. The week’s shipment arrived punctually from Havana. Nirvana, to the untrained eye, seemed hardly to have suffered. The four machines stamped and clicked all day; girls bent over the packing tables; the tin-men pricked and soldered as before. Only the pink slips of “unfilled orders” dwindled and dwindled, the piles of unsold cigarettes in the stock-room rose and rose. Peter was sitting alone in the back-office at Lime Street, thinking how soon he would have to begin paying off his “hands,” when Parkins announced, “Mr. Raymond P. Sellers.” “What does he want?” asked Peter. “I think it’s an American gentleman, Sir. He said he had a ‘proposition’ to put before you.” “Ask him to come in.” There entered a clean-shaven young man with gold eye-glasses, in square-shouldered clothes, square-tipped patent leather shoes, carrying a Panama hat in one hand and a reporter’s note-book in the other, who ejaculated: “Say, Mr. Jameson, I’m real glad to meet you,” in a voice which no citizen of the United States ever used on land or sea. Peter started to shake hands; looked up at his visitor; and burst out, “Francis, you blithering idiot, what on earth are you doing in that get-up?” Francis looked round to see if the door were closed. Then he said, in his ordinary voice, “It is a bit grotesque, isn’t it? But as the special representative of an anonymous American newspaper syndicate, I think it will pass for the next few days.” “You always were a bit of a lunatic,” said Peter gruffly, “but this is the limit. What do you propose doing in your fancy-dress?” “I’m leaving for Amsterdam on tonight’s boat, if you want to know,” answered Francis. “After that, my plans depend on circumstances. Look here,” he became suddenly serious, “this isn’t a joke. I should get into the devil’s own row if ‘they’ knew I’d been down here. You mustn’t tell a soul, Peter. Honestly. Not even Patricia. I know it sounds like a penny-novelette—but most of the penny-novelettes are coming true at the moment. Word of honour, old man, you won’t tell a soul.” Peter glanced at his cousin; saw that the slackness had disappeared from his face. The lips were tight-set, the eyes dark with suppressed emotion. “Word of honour, Francis. I won’t tell a soul. Not even Patricia. Why did you come here though, if it was against—” he stumbled over the word—“orders?”