Before any one could reply The Architect was on his feet waving his napkin. "By Jove!" he cried, "what a personality! Wouldn't he be a hit in comic opera! And think what could be done with the scenery; and that procession of parasols, with snakes hanging down from the branches, and monkeys skipping around among the leaves! Robinson Crusoe wouldn't be in it--why, it would take the town by storm! Girls in black stockinette and bangles, savages, spears, palms, elephant tusks, Goringe in a helmet and goat-skin shoes! I'll tell Michel Carré about it the first time I see him." "And every one of Goringe's girls a beautiful seductive houri," chimed in Louis with a wink at Le Blanc. "You seem to have slurred over all the details of this part of the panorama, Herbert." "Oh, ravishingly beautiful, Louis! Half of them were greased from head to foot with palm-oil, and smeared with powdered camwood that changed them to a deep mahogany; all had their wool twisted into knobs and pigtails, and most of them wore pieces of wood, big as the handle of a table knife, skewered through their upper lips. Oh!--a most adorable lot of houris." "All the better," vociferated The Architect. "Be stunning under the spotlights. Tell me more about him. I may write the libretto myself and get Livadi to do the music. It's a wonderful find! Did you ever see Goringe again?" "No, but I kept track of him. The Belgian home company went back on their contract, and refused to pay him just as he feared they would; they claimed he didn't and couldn't have supplied that number of carriers--the sort of defence a corporation always makes when they want to get out of a bad bargain. This decided him. He made a bee-line for the coast, sailed by the first steamer, brought suit, tried it himself, won his case, got his money and a new contract; took the first train for Monte Carlo, lost every penny he had in a night; went back to Brussels, got a second contract, sailed the same week for the Congo, and when I left Bangala for home had another caravan touring the country--bigger than the first--fitted out with the best that money could buy----" "Including his wives, of course," suggested Louis. "Yes, but not the lot he had left behind," added Herbert slowly, a frown settling on his brow. "They had long since been wiped out of existence." The Architect pounded the table until the glasses rattled. "Superb! Magnificent! That finishes the libretto! Carré shan't have it; I'll write it myself! But tell me please, if----" Lemois opened his fingers deprecatingly, his gaze fixed good-naturedly on the speaker.