gold beard and hair, and blue eyes, unusually bright. It was only
at the second glance that the mind felt a sudden and perhaps
unmeaning irritation at the way in which the gold beard retreated
backwards into the waistcoat, and the way in which the finely
shaped nose went forward as if smelling its way. And it was only,
perhaps, at the hundredth glance that the bright blue eyes, which
normally before and after the instant seemed brilliant with
intelligence, seemed as it were to be brilliant with idiocy. He
was a heavy, healthy-looking man, who looked all the larger
because of the loose, light coloured clothes that he wore, and
that had in their extreme lightness and looseness, almost a touch
of the tropics. But a closer examination of his attire would have
shown that even in the tropics it would have been unique; but it
was all woven according to some hygienic texture which no human
being had ever heard of before, and which was absolutely
necessary even for a day's health. He wore a huge broad-brimmed
hat, equally hygienic, very much at the back of his head, and his
voice coming out of so heavy and hearty a type of man was, as I
have said, startlingly shrill and deferential.

"I'm sure you'll excuse my speaking to you," he said. "Now, I
wonder if you are in some little difficulty which, after all, we
could settle very comfortably together? Now, you don't mind my
saying this, do you?"

The face of both combatants remained somewhat solid under this
appeal. But the stranger, probably taking their silence for a
gathering shame, continued with a kind of gaiety:

"So you are the young men I have read about in the papers. Well,