t anywhere widoud obstruction to
other projecds; so, my dear Sir Reginald, if you require my aid in any
way you may gommand me. Berhaps we may be able to help each other."

"You are, of course, more than welcome to any aid that I can afford
you," answered the "handsome baronet," as Sir Reginald Elphinstone's
friends sometimes called him--behind his back, of course. "But where
are you going?" he continued. "Anywhere in particular? If so, I will
walk a little way with you. Or, if you are not bound upon the
fulfilment of any engagement, let us go up into the smoking-room and
have a chat there."

"I am not boundt anywhere in bardigular, and the smoking-room is quide
empty, so led us go there, by all means," exclaimed the professor, as he
linked his arm in that of his companion; and together the strongly
contrasted pair wended their way through the handsome entrance-hall of
the building and up the spacious marble staircase to the cosiest
smoking-room in all London.

The taller and more striking-looking of the two was Sir Reginald
Elphinstone, a baronet, and an immensely wealthy man, with a magnificent
estate in the heart of the most picturesque part of Devonshire, a lovely
wife, and a most charming, lovable little daughter, now just five years
old. The baronet himself had barely passed his fortieth year, and was a
superb specimen of English manhood, standing full six feet two in his
stockings, with a fine athletic figure, blue eyes that ordinarily beamed
with kindliness and good-humour, but which could, upon occasion, flash
withering scorn or scathing anger upon an offender, and curly golden
hair, with beard and moustache to match, that made him look like a
viking got up in the style of a twentieth-century English gentleman.

His companion, much shorter and stouter of figure, was Professor
Heinrich von Schalckenberg, a German by birth, but a cosmopolitan by
nature and by virtue of his own restless disposition, which would never
permit him to settle down for very long in any one place, however
attractive. He was a perfect marvel in the matter of learning, a most
accomplished linguist, and an indefatigable delver in the lesser-known
fields of science, wherein he was credited with having made discoveries
of vast importance and value. If such was the case he was in no hurry
to make his discoveries public property, chiefly, perhaps, because--as
some of his more intimate friends suggested--they were of such a nature
as