Fischer's reply was almost ungracious. He watched their departure in silence, and afterwards leaned further back in his chair. With long, nervous fingers he drew a black cigar from his case and lit it. Then he folded his arms. For more than half an hour he sat there motionless, smoking furiously. He looked out into the chaos of the windy darkness, he heard voices riding upon the seas, shrieking and calling to him, voices to which he had been deaf too long. The burden of these later years of turbulent, brazen, selfish struggling, rolled back. He had been a sentimentalist once, a willing seeker after things which seemed to have passed him by. At his age, he told himself, a man should still find more than one place in the world. CHAPTER IX James Van Teyl glanced curiously at the small, dark figure standing patiently before him, and then back again at the wireless cable which he held in his fingers. He was just back from a tiring day in Wall Street, and was reclining in the most comfortable easy-chair of his Hotel Plaza sitting-room. "Gee!" he murmured. "This beats me. The last thing I should have thought we wanted here was a valet. The fellow who looks after this suite has scarcely anything else to do. What did you say your name was?" "Nikasti, sir." Van Teyl carefully reconsidered the cable. It certainly seemed to leave no room for misunderstanding. Please engage for our service, as valet, Nikasti. See that he enters on his duties at once. Hope land this evening. Your sister on board sends love.--F. "Well that seems clear enough," the young man muttered, thrusting the form into his waistcoat pocket. "You're here to stay, I guess, Nikasti? I see you've brought your kit along." "In case you decided to engage me, sir," the man replied. "Oh, you are engaged right enough," Van Teyl assured him. "You'd better make the best job you can of putting out my evening clothes. If you ring for the floor valet, he'll help you. The bedrooms are through that door." "Very good, sir!" "I am going down to the barber's now," Van Teyl continued, rising to his feet. "Just remember this, Nikasti--what a name, by the bye!" "I could be called Kato," the man suggested. "Kato for me all the time," his prospective employer agreed. "Well, listen. My sister, Miss Van Teyl, arrives from Europe on the _Lapland_ this evening. If she comes in or rings up, say I'm here and I want to see her at once. You understand?" "I understand, sir." Van Teyl strolled out, and Kato disappeared into the inner room. The floor valet, dressed in the dark blue livery of the hotel, was already laying out his master's dinner clothes. He eyed the intruder a little truculently. "Who are you, anyway?" he inquired. "My name is Nikasti," was the quiet reply. "Mr. Van Teyl has engaged me as his valet, to wait upon him and Mr. Fischer." The man laid down the shirt into which he was fixing the studs. "That's some news," he remarked bitterly.