and at once drew them into private conference.

"Gentlemen," he said, "I am sorry to have to trouble you to come to
me, but I am confident that you will forgive me when you understand my
reasons for insisting upon a meeting here." Keeping both men still
standing he continued: "I have a strange story to tell, so strange in
fact, that you gentlemen would be justified in doubting not only my
word but my sanity, had I nothing to show you in corroboration."

Both men stood like graven images; one like a soldier at attention;
the other, his hat and cane in his right hand and the tips of his two
first fingers resting lightly on the table behind which Underhill was
standing, his thin, clean-shaven, mask-like face as expressionless as
if it belonged to a head that had been stuck on the end of a pike and
shoved out across the table for Underhill to look at, instead of to
one well placed on his broad athletic shoulders. They both knew that
Underhill was young and had inherited from his beautiful American
mother a nervous and temperamental disposition. They also knew that
this was tempered by the crafty cleverness of the blood of the hero of
Blenheim. They had come prepared for one of his excitable outbursts,
although they knew he would not have been so insistent had there not
been good cause.

"Will you be so kind as to walk into this room with me?" He pointed
toward the door of the small room.

Still with that show of utter imperturbability the two complied,
continuing to gaze stolidly as their associate, closing the door
behind them, called their attention to the cannon-ball and broken
table.