Young Mackeller was ushered into a small room to the left of the hall. It was most severely plain, paneled somberly in old oak, lit by one window, and furnished with several heavy leather-covered chairs. In the center stood a small table, carrying a huge bottle of ink, like a great dab of black metal which had been flung while soft on its surface, and now, hardened, sat broad and squat as if it were part of the table itself. On a mat lay several pens, and at one end of the table stood a rack such as holds paper and envelopes, but in this case of most minute proportions, displaying three tiers, one above the other, of what appeared to be visiting cards; twelve minute compact packs all in all, four in each row. “This,” said Lord Stranleigh, with almost an air of geniality, “is my business office.” The visitor looked around him. There were no desks; no pillars of drawers; no japanned-metal boxes that held documents; no cupboards; no books; no pictures. “Pray be seated, Mr. Mackeller,” and when the young man had accepted the invitation, Lord Stranleigh drew up opposite to him at the small table with the packets of cards close to his right hand. “And now, if you will oblige me with Jack’s letter, I will glance over it, though he rarely writes anything worth reading.” Mackeller handed him the letter in an open envelope. His lordship slowly withdrew the document, adjusted an eyeglass, and read it; then he returned it to the envelope, and passed it back to its owner. “Would it be too much if I asked you to replace it in your pocket, as there is no waste-paper basket in this room?” Mackeller acted as requested, but the frown on his broad brow deepened. This butterfly seemed to annoy him with his imperturbable manner, and his trifling, finicky, childish insincerity. Confronted with a real man, Mackeller felt he might succeed, but he had already begun to fear that this bit of mental thistle-down would evade him, so instead of going on with his recital, he sat there glowering at Lord Stranleigh, who proved even more of a nonentity than the Honorable John Hazel had led him to believe. He had been prepared to meet some measure of irresponsible inanity, but not quite so much as this. It was Lord Stranleigh himself who broke the silence. “What do you want?” he asked, almost as if some of his opponent’s churlishness had hypnotically permeated into his own being. “Money,” snapped the other shortly. “Ah, they all do,” sighed his lordship, once more a picture of indolent nonchalance. He selected from the rack beside him four cards, one from each of the little packs in the lower range. These he spread face upward on the table before him. “I never trouble about money,” said his lordship, smiling. “You probably don’t need to, with thirty thousand a year,” suggested Mackeller.