"I notice that the Commissioner looks redder in the face than when I
last saw him."

"That," said Keith, "is one of Mr. Parker's characteristics."






CHAPTER III





Concerning the life and martyrdom of Saint Dodekamus, patron of
Nepenthe, we possess hardly any information of a trustworthy nature. It
is with his career as with that of other saints: they become
overlaid--encrusted, as it were--with extraneous legendary material in
the course of ages, even as a downward-rolling avalanche gathers snow.
The nucleus is hard to find. What is incontestably true may be summed
up almost in one paragraph.

He was born in A.D. 450, or thereabouts, in the city of Kallisto, in
Crete. He was an only child, a beautiful but unruly boy, the despair of
his widowed mother. At the age of thirteen he encountered, one evening,
an elderly man of thoughtful mien, who addressed him in familiar
language. On several later occasions he discoursed with the same