hand a great umbrella with a vivid green lining. His face was very pale,
and had the leaden transparency of a boiled artichoke; it was fringed
by a red beard streaked with gray, as brown flood-water is with foam.
I noticed at last that the reason for his presenting his forehead to
me was an incredible squint--a squint that gave the idea that he was
performing some tortuous and defiant feat with the muscles of his neck.

He maintained an air of distrustful inscrutability. The hand which took
my letter was very large, very white, and looked as if it would feel
horribly flabby. With the other he put on his nose a pair of enormous
mother-of-pearl-framed spectacles--things exactly like those of a
cobra's--and began to read. He had said precisely nothing at all. It was
for him and what he represented that I had thrown over Carlos and
what _he_ represented. I felt that I deserved to be received with
acclamation. I was not. He read the letter very deliberately, swaying,
umbrella and all, with the slow movement of a dozing elephant. Once he
crossed his eyes at me, meditatively, above the mother-of-pearl rims. He
was so slow, so deliberate, that I own I began to wonder whether Carlos
and Castro were still on board. It seemed to be at least half an
hour before Macdonald cleared his throat, with a sound resembling the
coughing of a defective pump, and a mere trickle of a voice asked:

"Hwhat evidence have ye of identitee?"

I hadn't any at all, and began to finger my buttonholes as shamefaced
as a pauper before a Board. The certitude dawned upon me suddenly that
Carlos, even if he would consent to swear to me, would prejudice my
chances.

I cannot help thinking that I came very near to being cast adrift upon