"Oh, you're good, Jim. But I want to be alone, just as you did when you were seasick. Go into the sitting-room. Please. I'll call you if I need you." He went into their sitting-room, a room that shone with green and gilt, and looked out, across a narrow street, at the grey houses of uniform height and listened to the shrill street-sounds of Paris. He was lonely. Somebody knocked at the door opening on the hall. "Come in," he called. "I mean: _entrez_!" A servant advanced, bearing a tray. Jim saw that there was a card on the tray. He took it up and read the name of Paul Achille Boussingault. He did not remember ever having heard the name. "_Pour moi?_" asked Jim. "Yes, sir," said the servant, in a wholly unaccented English. "Hum," said Jim. "Now I wonder what _he_ wants. Very well, show him up." He hurried to the bedroom. "Dear," he enquired, "tell me quick: how do you pronounce B-o-u-double s-i-n-g-a-u-l-t?" Muriel did not lift the covers that concealed her face. "Go away," she said. "I am going, only, dearie----" "Go away--_please_!" Jim re-entered the sitting-room. Was it Bou-sing-go? He had his doubts about that French _in_. If he remembered rightly, it was a kind of _an_, and the _n_ ended somewhere in the nose. And who was M. Boussingault, anyhow? "M. le docteur Boo-san-go," announced the servant. "Wait. How was that?" asked Jim, and then found himself face to face with his visitor. His visitor was a stocky man, of not more than five feet five or six inches in height, inclined to pugginess. He had a leathery complexion, and the point of his thin Van Dyck beard was in a straight line from the sharper point in which his close-clipped bristling hair ended above his nose. It was black hair, and it retreated precipitately on both sides. He looked at Jim through eyeglasses bearing a gold chain and bound together by a straight bar, which gave the effect of a continuous scowl to his heavy brows. He bowed deeply. "M. James Stainton?" he enquired. "Yes," said Jim. "Good-morning." "Good-morning, monsieur. I have the honour to present the compliments of my brother, M. Henri Duperre Boussingault, and to ask that you will be so very good as me to command in the case I can be of any the slightest service to you and madame during your visit to Paris." Stainton was at a loss. "Your brother?" said he. "M. Henri Boussingault," repeated the visitor. "He has to me written from Lyon to attend well to the appearance of your name among the distinguished arrivals in the _Daily Mail_." The mention of Lyons aided Stainton's memory. He recalled now that the name of Henri Boussingault had appeared among those of the Lyonnaise syndicate that was interested in the purchase of the mine. "Oh, yes," he said, and his broad teeth showed in a smile. "To be sure. This is very kind of you. Won't you sit down?"