A trembling voice which says something about “a letter from my solicitor,” reaches our ears, faintly. “The solicitor again, Raymond!” laughs O’Hagan. “Never the friend to measure the length of one’s blade! Your knights of the pen make sorry cavaliers!” I grant it. And the worst of my bad dreams is that wherein—unaccompanied by the magnificent and terrible O’Hagan—I encounter some of those whom he has browbeaten in my presence! But, as I think I already have stated, O’Hagan sometimes is misunderstood. At a certain club, of which O’Hagan is not a member, my friend was introduced to an American gentleman who proclaimed himself a press agent. (“I like Americans—real, full-blooded, whole-hearted Americans,” O’Hagan has told me. “I can even appreciate how, in an American, commercial acumen and gentility may be wedded. My great grand-uncle, Edmond, distinguished himself, as you remember, in the Civil War.” His great grand-uncle, Edmond, is a favourite source of anecdote; but the impression left upon my mind is that a more truculent, bloodthirsty swashbuckler never breathed God’s air.) “I am very delighted to have met you, Captain O’Hagan,” said the press agent, whose name was Alex. Dewson. “I would like to put up a proposition right now!” O’Hagan fumbled, impressively, for the broad black ribbon upon which depends his monocle. He raised the glass, and, holding it at some little distance from his right eye, surveyed the speaker. O’Hagan’s right eye, magnified by the pebble, can show, on occasions, as a large grey orb of intolerance. “You interest me, Mr. Dewson.” “I’ll interest you some more yet, sir!” declared Dewson, with cheery confidence. “It’s likely you’ll have heard of a little author called Ronald Brandon?” He spoke the words waggishly; as one might say: “You may have heard a little Stratford fellow, called Shakespeare, mentioned?”—or, “You’ve perhaps seen the name of a rather likely figure painter, known as Michelangelo?” In point of fact, Ronald Brandon really _was_ a “little” author; and, as it happened, O’Hagan never had heard of him. He has never heard of _any_ modern fictionists; he regards them _all_ with immeasurable contempt. Mr. Dewson’s question was purely a rhetoric question, however, and he proceeded without pausing for a reply: “His new book (it’ll break all the windows) is ‘Jules Sanquin, Duellist.’ He’s placed his press work in my hands, and I’ve been looking for an introduction to you, Captain, for over a week! I can put up a proposition to net you a pile!” “Indeed!” said O’Hagan, icily. (“Such people as Dewson,” he has confided to me, “are calculated to bring disgrace upon a national character. He was the type of man who would have sought an audience with His Holiness the Pope, and ‘put up a proposition’ to boom St. Peter’s.”) “My client, as you’ll know,” continued the irrepressible press agent, “is top-hole as a swordsman. Took out the team a year ago that beat the Frenchmen.” Captain O’Hagan stared.