was in business in Valparaiso, and there's enough evidence to write
three volumes of his innocent life there. Then he came home with a
modest competence two years before the war, and has been in the
public eye ever since. He was Liberal candidate for a London
constitooency and he has decorated the board of every institootion
formed for the amelioration of mankind. He's got enough alibis to
choke a boa constrictor, and they're water-tight and copper-
bottomed, and they're mostly damned lies ... But you can't beat
him at that stunt. The man's the superbest actor that ever walked
the earth. You can see it in his face. It isn't a face, it's a mask. He
could make himself look like Shakespeare or Julius Caesar or Billy
Sunday or Brigadier-General Richard Hannay if he wanted to. He
hasn't got any personality either - he's got fifty, and there's no one
he could call his own. I reckon when the devil gets the handling of
him at last he'll have to put sand on his claws to keep him from
slipping through.'

Blenkiron was settled in his chair again, with one leg hoisted
over the side.

'We've closed a fair number of his channels in the last few
months. No, he don't suspect me. The world knows nothing of its
greatest men, and to him I'm only a Yankee peace-crank, who gives
big subscriptions to loony societies and will travel a hundred miles
to let off steam before any kind of audience. He's been to see me at
Claridge's and I've arranged that he shall know all my record. A
darned bad record it is too, for two years ago I was violent pro-
British before I found salvation and was requested to leave England.
When I was home last I was officially anti-war, when I wasn't
stretched upon a bed of pain. Mr Moxon Ivery don't take any stock