If there was a man who did not know, or know of, Antony Poole in the careless years before the war, then there must have been something the matter with his eyes or ears. For Red Antony was a famous sight in every crowded place in London, and achieved considerable nonentity as the noisiest and worst-tempered rascal since Fighting Fitzgerald of the Regency. He crashed, did Antony, in furious idiocy from row to row and roguery to roguery, so that the day inevitably came when no decent man or woman would be seen speaking to the man. Oh, a calamitous pair, the brothers Poole! For one night his brother, the Great Sir Roger, brilliant and sardonic Roger, dark and successful Roger, good sportsman and lovable fellow--one night our Roger put a bullet through his head, and at the inquest the amazed world heard that he had done this unbelievable thing because the police were hammering at the door with a warrant for his arrest on a charge of fraud. This we, his friends, did not believe. The police may have been hammering at the door, we said, but the police are notoriously promiscuous about the doors they hammer at. “Fraud be damned in connection with Roger Poole!”--that is what we said. Why, he was fine, that Roger--_fine_! Thus we mourned him, once the wealthiest and wittiest of our company, and we defended his memory against the few who dared impugn it. But the disappearance of the red giant who was now Sir Antony Poole we did not mourn, for from the day of the inquest, at which he broke down and wept like a stricken child, he had not been seen in London until this night in Park Lane. II “Go quietly,” Tarlyon restrained me. “We’ll teach Red Antony to walk up Park Lane without a hat.” Gently we approached, one on each side of the colossal back. “Oi!” we cried. A wrench, and he faced us. We are tall, but we were as children beneath him. “Oi to you!” snarled Antony. “Who the blazes are you, anyway?” And the great red expanse which was given to Antony for a face surveyed us intolerantly. Never what you might call an easy-tempered man, Red Antony. “We be friends,” said Tarlyon sombrely. “That’s uncommonly original of you,” drawled Antony. “I didn’t know I had any.” And he pretended not to recognise us--for Antony must always act, always play cussed. “You haven’t,” Tarlyon grinned. “But mine was just a manner of speaking.” He knew his man; and there passed over Red Antony’s face that earthquake and tornado which was given him for a smile and a laugh. “Hell! Always the same Tarlyon! How are you, George?” “Monstrous,” says George. “But there is no sensation in matter,” boomed Red Antony, crushing his hand. “And this,” said Tarlyon, waving his other towards me, “and this, Sir Antony, is your old friend Ralph Wyndham Trevor, whom you may quite have forgotten, since you owe him a hundred pounds.” Another earthquake across that vast red expanse, so that I feared for the sleep of those mythical Jews....