Noon and.... He had an engagement at two! He brightened at the memory and, jumping up, pressed an electric call-button on the wall. By the time he had paddled barefoot to the bath-room and turned on the cold-water tap, O'Hagan's knock summoned him to the hall door. "Back again, O'Hagan; and in a desperate rush. I'll want you to shave me and send some telegrams, please. Must be off by one-thirty. You may get out my grey-striped flannels"--here he paused, calculating his costume with careful discrimination,--"and a black-striped negligée shirt; grey socks; russet low shoes; black and white check tie--broad wings. You know where to find them all?" "Shure yiss, sor." O'Hagan showed no evidence of surprise; the eccentricities of Mr. Maitland could not move him, who was inured to them through long association and observation. He moved away to execute his instructions, quietly efficient. By the time Maitland had finished splashing and gasping in the bath-tub, everything was ready for the ceremony of dressing. In other words, twenty minutes later Maitland, bathed, shaved, but still in dressing-gown and slippers, was seated at his desk, a cup of black coffee steaming at his elbow, a number of yellow telegraph blanks before him, a pen poised between his fingers. It was in his mind to send a wire to Cressy, apologizing for his desertion of the night just gone, and announcing his intention to rejoin the party from which the motor trip to New York had been as planned but a temporary defection, in time for dinner that same evening. He nibbled the end of the pen-holder, selecting phrases, then looked up at the attentive O'Hagan. "Bring me a New Haven time-table, please," he began, "and--" The door-bell abrupted his words, clamoring shrilly. "What the deuce?" he demanded. "Who can that be? Answer it, will you, O'Hagan?" He put down the pen, swallowed his coffee, and lit a cigarette, listening to the murmurs at the hall door. An instant later, O'Hagan returned, bearing a slip of white pasteboard which he deposited on the desk before Maitland. "'James Burleson Snaith,'" Maitland read aloud from the faultlessly engraved card. "I don't know him. What does he want?" "Wouldn't say, sor; seemed surprised whin I towld him ye were in, an' said he was glad to hear it--business pressin', says he." "'Snaith'? But I never heard the name before. What does he look like?" "A gintleman, sor, be th' clothes av him an' th' way he talks." "Well.... Devil take the man! Show him in." "Very good, sor." Maitland swung around in his desk chair, his back to the window, expression politely curious, as his caller entered the room, pausing, hat in hand, just across the threshold.