"What the deuce?" he demanded. "Who can that be? Answer it, will you,
O'Hagan?"

He put down the pen, swallowed his coffee, and lit a cigarette, listening
to the murmurs at the hall door. An instant later, O'Hagan returned,
bearing a slip of white pasteboard which he deposited on the desk before
Maitland.

"'James Burleson Snaith,'" Maitland read aloud from the faultlessly
engraved card. "I don't know him. What does he want?"

"Wouldn't say, sor; seemed surprised whin I towld him ye were in, an' said
he was glad to hear it--business pressin', says he."

"'Snaith'? But I never heard the name before. What does he look like?"

"A gintleman, sor, be th' clothes av him an' th' way he talks."

"Well.... Devil take the man! Show him in."

"Very good, sor."

Maitland swung around in his desk chair, his back to the window, expression
politely curious, as his caller entered the room, pausing, hat in hand,
just across the threshold.

He proved to be a man apparently of middle age, of height approximating
Maitland's; his shoulders were slightly rounded as if from habitual bending
over a desk, his pose mild and deferential. By his eyeglasses and peering