The Colossus was ushered at once into the presence of a remarkable personage. A man about forty years old was seated cross-legged on the ground, after the fashion of the East, in a room hardly less exotic. Its cushions, rugs and curtains evoked the Orient as surely as the tchibouk its occupant was contemplatively sucking and the fumes of the pungent-scented Arabian tobacco which filled the whole place. The man who sat on a cushion on the richly carpeted floor wore a burnoose, slippers and a turban. In every detail of surroundings and pose he recalled a very different scene, but the dark-eyed, close-shaven face, in spite of a withdrawn look which lent it a subtle asceticism, was too fair of skin to suggest an exclusively eastern type. The keenly penetrating Hartz who had never seen this man before, was a little taken aback by the sight he presented. Almost the first thought that entered the visitor’s mind was that he had to do with an obvious charlatan. The trappings of the East superimposed upon the contours of the West did not inspire confidence. Yet the reputation of this man Wygram was such as to make it impossible to dismiss him lightly. Humbug he might be, yet no one could have earned such a name throughout the world, or rather the underworld of high affairs, without being the possessor of qualities which placed him entirely beyond the range of ordinary people. All the same a dyed-in-the-wool skeptic found it hard to dissemble a secret pang which was more than disappointment if less than disgust, as he confronted this pseudo-oriental with a smile and a conventional phrase. “It is good of you, Mr. Wygram, to see me.” The man on the floor removed the pipe from his lips and bowed slightly. Between his slender fingers, which were those of an æsthete and an artist, he held the card of his august visitor. “Pray, sit down,” he said, in a gentle voice of extraordinary sweetness as the Egyptian closed the door and left them together. As Saul Hartz brought his solid bulk very slowly and deliberately to anchor on the edge of a most seductive divan, he felt pretty sure in his own mind that already he had this merry-andrew sized up. The man on the floor placidly resumed his tchibouk. With a grave absorption, a more than oriental indifference, he continued to smoke. Evidently it was his way of asking his visitor to explain himself. But the Colossus could not help secretly resenting this detachment. He was a very great man. It was idle to disguise that fact. The world at large was even more keenly aware of it than he was himself; therefore, the pose of this creature Wygram was a little galling.