honor of his company at dinner, Tuesday, March the thirtieth, at
nine o'clock.

"4020 Madison Avenue."

Dishonor, death, and dinner--a curious trio to choose between. Yet
to a man in my present position each of them appealed in its own
way, and I'm not ashamed to confess it. Perhaps the choice I made
may seem inevitable, but what if you had seen Bingham's face as I
did, with the arc light full upon it? It was the remembrance of
that which made me hesitate; twice I drew my hand away and looked
at the money and the pistol.

Through the open door came a ravishing odor, that of a filet a la
Chateaubriand; the purely animal instincts reasserted themselves,
and I picked up the gardenia blossom that lay beside the letter and
stuck it into the button-hole of my dinner-jacket. I looked down at
the table, and it seemed to me that the ten-thousand-dollar note
and the pistol had disappeared. But what of that, what did anything
matter now; I was going to dine--to dine!

I walked up-stairs, guided by that delicious, that heavenly odor,
and entered the dining-room in the rear, without the smallest
hesitation. At one end of the table sat a man of perhaps forty
years of age. An agreeable face, for all of the tired droop about
the mouth and the deep lines in the forehead; it could light up,
too, upon occasion, as I was soon to discover. For the present I
did not bother myself with profitless conjectures; that entrancing
filet, displayed in a massive silver cover, stood before him; I
could not take my eyes from it.