“Ask Signor Ulrich to wait a few minutes,” Tarsis said, after glancing at the name. He appreciated the value of finishing his critical task while the knack of it was warm in his brain and fingers. With composure unaffected and care unrelaxed he wrote the letter that he had shaped in his mind. It began with “My Beloved Mario” and closed with the words, “Yours, though all the world oppose, Hera.” He inscribed the envelope, “To the Honourable Mario Forza, 17, Via Senato, Milan,” sealed it, and placed it in an inner pocket of his coat. Beppe knocked again. “I beg your pardon, signore,” he began when Tarsis had swung the door no farther than before; “but the gentleman is so urgent. He says he must see you--that he has news which you ought to have at once. He seems very full of it, signore,” he added, gravely. “I am afraid the poor gentleman will explode if he is not admitted very soon.” “Ask him to wait another five minutes,” Tarsis said, and Beppe made off with a submissive “Very good, signore,” but his head shaking dubiously. One by one his master gathered the sheets on the table into an orderly pile, folded the lot deliberately, and slipped them into his pocket; he looked under the table and the chair to be certain that no trace of his work remained. Then he lit a cigarette, rang for Beppe, and told him to show in Signor Ulrich. The superintendent-general of the Tarsis Silk Company bustled into the library, his lips puffing, eyes big with excitement. Tarsis greeted him standing, waved his hand to a chair, and asked what had happened. “Happened!” exclaimed Signor Ulrich. “_Per Dio_, I could tell you sooner what has not happened.” “Let us have what has happened first,” was the other’s quiet command. “Be good enough to give me the facts briefly.” “Briefly, then,” cried the Austrian, too much agitated to sit down, “hell is at large!” “A strike?” “No; a revolution!” Tarsis had schooled himself not to take the man too seriously; he valued the ardour that he gave to his tasks, but took care to divide the chaff from the wheat of his enthusiasm. “What are the particulars?” he inquired. “All our mills are shut down.” “All in Milan?” “In three provinces--Piedmont, Lombardy, and Venetia. They called the hands out by telegraph. But that was only the beginning. The mob is shouting for bread and rioting; not alone the silk workers, but hundreds of others--all the lazy rabble of the quarter”; and the man of practical notions fumed in wrath against this unexpected phase of social phenomena. “A bread riot is hardly our affair,” Tarsis remarked, dropping into a chair. “It’s a case for the police.” “But they have made it our affair,” Ulrich said. “Every window in the Ticinese Gate mill is smashed, and what is more, the place would have been in flames but for the carbineers.” “Are the soldiers out?” Tarsis asked, blowing the ashes from his cigarette.