He knocked at the door just as the maids were leaving, and since they knew little about Manfred and his ways except that he liked poached eggs and spinach for breakfast, the stranger was allowed to drift into the hall, and here the taciturn butler, hastily summoned from his room, found him. The visitor was a stubby, thick-set man with a brick-red face and a head that was both grey and bald. His dress and his speech were equally rough. The butler saw that he was no ordinary artisan because his boots were of a kind known as _veldtschoons_. They were of undressed leather, patchily bleached by the sun. “I want to see the boss of this Triangle,” he said in a loud voice, and, diving into his waistcoat pocket, brought out a soiled newspaper cutting. The butler took it from him without a word. It was the _Cape Times_—he would have known by the type and the spacing even if on the back there had not been printed the bisected notice of a church bazaar at Wynberg. The butler studied such things. “I am afraid that you cannot see Mr. Manfred without an appointment,” he said. His voice and manner were most unexpectedly gentle in such a forbidding man. “I’ve got to see him, if I sit here all night,” said the man stubbornly, and symbolized his immovability by squatting down in the hall chair. Not a muscle of the servant’s face moved. It was impossible to tell whether he was angry or amused. “I got this cutting out of a paper I found on the _Benguella_—she docked at Tilbury this afternoon—and I came straight here. I should never have dreamt of coming at all, only I want fair play for all concerned. That Portuguese feller with a name like a cigar—Villa, that’s it!—he said, ‘What’s the good of going to London when we can settle everything on board ship?’ But half-breed Portuguese! My God, I’d rather deal with bushmen! Bushmen are civilized—look here.” Before the butler realized what the man was doing, he had slipped off one of his ugly shoes. He wore no sock or stocking underneath, and he upturned the sole of his bare foot for inspection. The flesh was seamed and puckered into red weals, and the butler knew the cause. “Portuguese,” said the visitor tersely as he resumed his shoe. “Not niggers—Portugooses—half-bred, I’ll admit. They burnt me to make me talk, and they’d have killed me only one of those hell-fire American traders came along—full of fight and fire-water. He brought me into the town.” “Where was this?” asked the butler. “Mosamades: I went ashore to look round, like a fool. I was on a Woerman boat that was going up to Boma. The skipper was a Hun, but white—he warned me.” “And what did they want to know from you?” The caller shot a suspicious glance at his interrogator. “Are you the boss?” he demanded. “No—I’m Mr. Manfred’s butler. What name shall I tell him?”