"Eh?" Calendar pulled up suddenly in a full-winged flight of enthusiasm.

Kirkwood eyed him steadily. "I said that it is a question, Mr. Calendar,
whether or not I am the man you're looking for. Between you and me and the
fire-dogs, I don't believe I am. Now if you wish to name your _quid
pro quo_, this trifling service I'm to render in recognition of your
benevolence, you may."

"Ye-es," slowly. But the speaker delayed his reply until he had surveyed
his host from head to foot, with a glance both critical and appreciative.

He saw a man in height rather less than the stock size six-feet so much
in demand by the manufacturers of modern heroes of fiction; a man a bit
round-shouldered, too, but otherwise sturdily built, self-contained,
well-groomed.

Kirkwood wears a boy's honest face; no one has ever called him handsome. A
few prejudiced persons have decided that he has an interesting countenance;
the propounders of this verdict have been, for the most part, feminine.
Kirkwood himself has been heard to declare that his features do not fit;
in its essence the statement is true, but there is a very real, if
undefinable, engaging quality in their very irregularity. His eyes are
brown, pleasant, set wide apart, straightforward of expression.

Now it appeared that, whatever his motive, Mr. Calendar had acted upon
impulse in sending his card up to Kirkwood. Possibly he had anticipated a
very different sort of reception from a very different sort of man. Even in
the light of subsequent events it remains difficult to fathom the mystery
of his choice. Perhaps Fate directed it; stranger things have happened at
the dictates of a man's Destiny.