Before that cavernous fireplace posed General Siddall. He was a tiny mite of a man with a thin wiry body supporting the head of a professional barber. His black hair was glossy and most romantically arranged. His black mustache and imperial were waxed and brilliantined. There was no mistaking the liberal use of dye, also. From the rather thin, very sharp face looked a pair of small, muddy, brown-green eyes--dull, crafty, cold, cruel. But the little man was so insignificant and so bebarbered and betailored that one could not take him seriously. Never had there been so new, so carefully pressed, so perfectly fitting evening clothes; never a shirt so expensively got together, or jeweled studs, waistcoat buttons and links so high priced. From every part of the room, from every part of the little man's perfumed and groomed person, every individual article seemed to be shrieking, "The best is not too good for Bill Siddall!" Mildred was agreeably surprised--she was looking with fierce determination for agreeable surprises--when the costly little man spoke, in a quiet, pleasant voice with an elusive, attractive foreign accent. "My, but this is grand--grand, General Siddall!" said Presbury in the voice of the noisy flatterer. "Princely! Royal!" Mildred glanced nervously at Siddall. She feared that Presbury had taken the wrong tone. She saw in the unpleasant eyes a glance of gratified vanity. Said he: "Not so bad, not so bad. I saw the house in Paris, when I was taking a walk one day. I went to the American ambassador and asked for the best architect in Paris. I went to him, told him about the house--and here it is." "Decorations, furniture, and all!" exclaimed Presbury. "No, just the house. I picked up the interiors in different parts of Europe--had everything reproduced where I couldn't buy outright. I want to enjoy my money while I'm still young. I didn't care what it cost to get the proper surroundings. As I said to my architect and to my staff of artists, I expected to be cheated, but I wanted the goods. And I got the goods. I'll show you through the house after dinner. It's on this same scale throughout. And they're putting me together a country place--same sort of thing." He threw back his little shoulders and protruded his little chest. "And the joke of it is that the whole business isn't costing me a cent." "Not a cent less than half a dozen or a dozen millions," said Presbury. "Not so much as that--not quite," protested the delightedly sparkling little general. "But what I meant was that, as fast as these fellows spend, I go down-town and make. Fact is, I'm a little better off than I was when I started in to build." "Well, you didn't get any of MY money," laughed Presbury. "But I suppose pretty much everybody else in the country must have contributed."