“Do you hear me? Release that lady! Yvette! stand aside, I beg of you! I have something to say to this person!” La Belle looked from face to face. All was not well here. Only Captain O’Hagan seemed at ease: he should be the star of her guidance! The head-waiter returning, the Captain assisted mademoiselle to endue her leopard-skin cloak. Brandon’s fists clenched and re-opened convulsively. “Yvette!” He almost choked. “You are not going _away_?—not going to leave me here—a laughing-stock——” “Mr. Ronald Brandon!” O’Hagan placed his arm protectingly about mademoiselle’s shoulders and stared through the monocle at the novelist’s pale face. “I do not approve of this lady’s being in your company!” Brandon fell back (O’Hagan’s divine audacity can strike as a physical blow) into the arms of Mr. Dewson. “Stick to your part!” hissed the latter in his ear; and held him firmly. “This is a treat! All the restaurant heard what he said! Heard your name, too!” “Curse you! Let go!” The veins swelled upon Brandon’s forehead; his eyes protruded. Captain O’Hagan, serenely: “Come, mademoiselle! This vulgar brawler is no fit companion for us!” Half the guests were upon their feet now. Someone had gone for the manager. The horror-frozen head-waiter met the Gorgon gaze which hypnotically sought him through the pebble. He turned and swung wide the door. Brandon made a savage leap. Dewson grabbed his coat tails. Mademoiselle, trembling slightly, having quitted the room, O’Hagan turned, and tossed his card at Brandon’s feet. “You may care further to discuss the matter at some future time,” he said coldly. “I am otherwise engaged this evening!” Brandon broke loose at that, but collided with the head-waiter, who began to feel faint. A tremendous buzz of conversation arose. Above it sounded the shrill note of a whistle. O’Hagan, without, had ordered a taxi. Then someone laughed—a pressman there for the “story.” The novelist whisked around upon the detaining Mr. Dewson. “Curse you and your ‘boosts’!” he snarled. “You’ve made me the laughing-stock of London! I’ll kill that damned O’Hagan!” “Good business!” said the press agent. “Do it. Double our sales!” ————— IV. ECHOES OF THE BOOM. O’Hagan called upon me. His entrances possess electric properties. One’s schemes melt; O’Hagan becomes the scheme of all things terrestrial. The future shrinks, bounded by O’Hagan. The universe is “a universe after Captain the Hon. Bernard O’Hagan.” An unexpected call by the Tsar of all the Russias could not be more exciting, and one would be less impressed if the Mikado dropped in for a pipe and a Scotch-and-soda. “I have selected you, Raymond”—he toyed with his monocle—“to act for me in a little affair on the French coast. You will be associated with Lieutenant the Chevalier Camille d’Oysans.” That was bad hearing.