"My dear fellow, I am never busily engaged, and I am never more idle than now. You will stay, of course. Will you smoke?--I mean tobacco. I think you smoke narghilehs; shall Murad come and light you one?" "Thanks, by your leave I will smoke my own," and McCann pulled out his brier bull-dog, filled it from his own pouch, and sat down constrainedly, his eyes fixed on the four men in their motley costumes, strewn on the floor. At once Aurelian began to talk to him frankly and freely, as though nothing had changed since last master and pupil had spoken together, questioning him of his adventures in England and Germany while on his mission among the socialist leaders. McCann noted with surprise and with a feeling almost of reassurance that no detail of recent sociological events had escaped Aurelian; that he listened with equal interest to all that he told him; that he showed keen satisfaction at the outcome of two or three recent strikes in which the strikers had been victorious. But all the time the agitator's eyes were wandering over the dimly visible details of the strange treasure-house where he found himself. He looked on it all with growing resentment; it was hardly to be called socialistic, and there seemed to be a lack of harmony between these luxurious surroundings and the words that Aurelian was saying. There was something awfully wrong; but he shrunk from knowing what he feared to be the worst. After the first convulsion which his entrance had caused, the different men had all fallen back languidly in their places; but now Wentworth lifted himself lazily and came down toward Aurelian and the agitator. "Well, _citoyen_," he said, nothing abashed by his fantastic garb, which was far enough from being the same in which he generally met McCann, "Well, _citoyen_, you come as a visitant from another world, like the black steamers that crawl into the balmy vision known to the children of men as Venice,--in it, not of it. Can you bring a tale of the things without? Is there anything worthy of note in Philistia? How fare our friends the republics of the world, there in the outer darkness?" "Oh," said McCann, with indifference, "there is another revolution on down in Guatemala, and one expected daily in Brazil, and one in the French Republic--"