"Same name, isn't it?" he asked.

"Yes," responded Mr. McHulish.

"Do you know him?" asked the consul, evidently surprised.

"We don't, but he's a friend of one of the Eagle boys. I reckon we would
have seen him anyhow; but we'll agree with you to hold on until we do.
It's a go. Goodby, old pard! So long."

They both shook the consul's hand, and departed, leaving him staring at
the fog into which they had melted as if they were unreal shadows of the
past.


II.


The next morning the fog had given way to a palpable, horizontally
driving rain, which wet the inside as well as the outside of umbrellas,
and caused them to be presented at every conceivable angle as they
drifted past the windows of the consulate. There was a tap at the door,
and a clerk entered.

"Ye will be in to Sir James MacFen?"

The consul nodded, and added, "Show him in here."

It was the magnate to whom he had sent the note the previous day, a man
of large yet slow and cautious nature, learned and even pedantic, yet