"Guess I came over last night--the hotel clerk said you were visiting. Say, I must have a talk with you. Benjamin has cabled Paris for the news, and he's got to have it. You know Benjamin, sure! Well, then, you know what you've got to do." Faber knew Benjamin Barnett of the _New York Mitre_ very well, but the process of "doing it" seemed to amuse him. He sat up in bed and called for his man, Frank, who had been brushing his clothes in the bathroom. "What time is it, Frank?" "A quarter past nine, sir." "Then go and order half a dozen Bass's ale for Mr. Morris, and bring me my coffee." The journalist offered no objection whatever to this drastic prescription, and when the beer was brought, and coffee, with hot-house grapes and other fine fruit, had been set at the bedside, he drained a glass to the dregs and then spoke up. "Benjamin says the strike on their side is going to keep wheat out of England for a month. You're the man most concerned in that, for a word from you could end it. It's because your Charleston people went out that the others followed. What I'm thinking is that you're hoist with your own petard. You must tell me if it's true or false?" Faber was out of bed by this time, dressed in a wonderful Japanese kimono which gave him the appearance of a theatrical mandarin. He was always amused by Bertie Morris, and generally ready to help him. Now, however, he seemed at a loss, and he walked to the window and looked out before he gave him any answer whatsoever. What an unfamiliar spectacle he beheld from these high windows of the Savoy Hotel! The River gave promise of soon being frozen from bank to bank. Great lumps of shining ice protruded from its black face, and thousands of idlers were ready to play in the arena this memorable winter would create for them. Far away, to Westminster and beyond, the scene suffered no change, the river of ice flashed in the wan sunlight of the bitter day. He had heard yesterday of a pageant the city would prepare, and here this morning were the outposts; jovial men who waited to prepare the theatre, hew down the hummocks, and make many a broken path straight. An ox would be roasted whole upon the Thames to-morrow, and many a keg of good beer broached. The citizens themselves watched the strange scene from the banks and the bridges, thousands of them in black lines--well-to-do and ill-to-do; men and women about whose glowing bodies fortune had put fair furs; wretched out-of-works who shivered in the cold and had hardly a rag to cover them. Stress of weather could break many a barrier; there would be little caste in England when a few weeks had run. Faber regarded the scene for a little while in silence; then he took up the conversation at the exact point where Morris had left it. "Does Benjamin name me in this?"