At this point he was interrupted by encountering another American who
also insisted upon stopping and shaking hands. This was a young
architect from New York, who had from time to time done work for his
father's estate and who had also made some alterations at the Little
Place in the Country for Edestone himself. He was a tall, lank young
man of about twenty-seven, with little rat-like eyes, placed so close
to his hawk-like nose that one felt Nature would have been kinder to
him had she given him only one eye and frankly placed it in the middle
of his receding forehead. His small blonde moustache did not cover his
rabbit mouth, which was so filled with teeth that he could with
difficulty close his lips.

"What has brought you to London, Schmidt? Aren't you afraid that these
Englishmen will capture you and shoot you as a spy?"

"Sh! Not quite so loud please, Mr. Edestone; these English are such
fools. They think that because a man has a German name he must be a
fighting German, when you know that I am a perfectly good naturalized
American citizen. My passport is made out in the name of Schmidt, and
that's my name all right, but I call myself Smith over here to keep
from rubbing these fellows the wrong way."

"Well, Mr. 'Smith,' you have not told me what you are doing in
London."

"I have been sent over by a New York architectural paper to make a
report upon the condition of the cathedral at Rheims. I stopped over
in London to get my papers vised by the Royal Institute of
Architects." Then, lowering his voice, and keeping his eyes on a