pages.

"Mr. Kirkwood?"

Kirkwood nodded.

"Gentleman to see you, sir."

Kirkwood nodded again, smiling if somewhat perplexed. Encouraged, the child
advanced, proffering a silver card-tray at the end of an unnaturally rigid
forearm. Kirkwood took the card dubiously between thumb and forefinger and
inspected it without prejudice.

"'George B. Calendar,'" he read. "'George B. Calendar!' But I know no such
person. Sure there's no mistake, young man?"

The close-cropped, bullet-shaped, British head was agitated in vigorous
negation, and "Card for Mister Kirkwood!" was mumbled in dispassionate
accents appropriate to a recitation by rote.

"Very well. But before you show him up, ask this Mr. Calendar if he is
quite sure he wants to see Philip Kirkwood."

"Yessir."

The child marched out, punctiliously closing the door. Kirkwood tamped
down the tobacco in his pipe and puffed energetically, dismissing the
interruption to his reverie as a matter of no consequence--an obvious
mistake to be rectified by two words with this Mr. Calendar whom he did not
know. At the knock he had almost hoped it might be Brentwick, returning