The man who was presently ushered in by the messenger seemed from
preliminary and outward appearance to justify Breton's prognostication.
He was obviously a countryman, a tall, loosely-built, middle-aged man,
yellow of hair, blue of eye, who was wearing his Sunday-best array of
pearl-grey trousers and black coat, and sported a necktie in which were
several distinct colours. Oppressed with the splendour and grandeur of
the _Watchman_ building, he had removed his hard billycock hat as he
followed the boy, and he ducked his bared head at the two young men as
he stepped on to the thick pile of the carpet which made luxurious
footing in Spargo's room. His blue eyes, opened to their widest, looked
round him in astonishment at the sumptuousness of modern
newspaper-office accommodation.

"How do you do, sir?" said Spargo, pointing a finger to one of the
easy-chairs for which the _Watchman_ office is famous. "I understand
that you wish to see me?"

The caller ducked his yellow head again, sat down on the edge of the
chair, put his hat on the floor, picked it up again, and endeavoured to
hang it on his knee, and looked at Spargo innocently and shyly.

"What I want to see, sir," he observed in a rustic accent, "is the
gentleman as wrote that piece in your newspaper about this here murder
in Middle Temple Lane."

"You see him," said Spargo. "I am that man."

The caller smiled--generously.