"Calladine!" cried Ricardo in an extreme surprise. "That is the most extraordinary thing." He looked at the clock upon his mantelpiece. It was barely half-past eight. "At this hour, too?" "Mr. Calladine is still wearing evening dress," the butler remarked. Ricardo started in his chair. He began to dream of possibilities; and here was Hanaud miraculously at his side. "Where is Mr. Calladine?" he asked. "I have shown him into the library." "Good," said Mr. Ricardo. "I will come to him." But he was in no hurry. He sat and let his thoughts play with this incident of Calladine's early visit. "It is very odd," he said. "I have not seen Calladine for months--no, nor has anyone. Yet, a little while ago, no one was more often seen." He fell apparently into a muse, but he was merely seeking to provoke Hanaud's curiosity. In this attempt, however, he failed. Hanaud continued placidly to eat his breakfast, so that Mr. Ricardo was compelled to volunteer the story which he was burning to tell. "Drink your coffee, Hanaud, and you shall hear about Calladine." Hanaud grunted with resignation, and Mr. Ricardo flowed on: "Calladine was one of England's young men. Everybody said so. He was going to do very wonderful things as soon as he had made up his mind exactly what sort of wonderful things he was going to do. Meanwhile, you met him in Scotland, at Newmarket, at Ascot, at Cowes, in the box of some great lady at the Opera--not before half-past ten in the evening _there_--in any fine house where the candles that night happened to be lit. He went everywhere, and then a day came and he went nowhere. There was no scandal, no trouble, not a whisper against his good name. He simply vanished. For a little while a few people asked: 'What has become of Calladine?' But there never was any answer, and London has no time for unanswered questions. Other promising young men dined in his place. Calladine had joined the huge legion of the Come-to-nothings. No one even seemed to pass him in the street. Now unexpectedly, at half-past eight in the morning, and in evening dress, he calls upon me. 'Why?' I ask myself." Mr. Ricardo sank once more into a reverie. Hanaud watched him with a broadening smile of pure enjoyment. "And in time, I suppose," he remarked casually, "you will perhaps ask him?" Mr. Ricardo sprang out of his pose to his feet. "Before I discuss serious things with an acquaintance," he said with a scathing dignity, "I make it a rule to revive my impressions of his personality. The cigarettes are in the crystal box." "They would be," said Hanaud, unabashed, as Ricardo stalked from the room. But in five minutes Mr. Ricardo came running back, all his composure gone. "It is the greatest good fortune that you, my friend, should have chosen this morning to visit me," he cried, and Hanaud nodded with a little grimace of resignation. "There goes my holiday. You shall command me now and always. I will make the acquaintance of your young friend."