"Ah!" The bald man nodded, and sought a bottle. "A little of this" he
was damping a rag of lint with the contents of the bottle "as a
cleansing agent first. If monsieur will bend down a little so."

Daintily, with precision and delicacy, he proceeded to apply the
cleansing agent to the cut; at the first dab the patient leapt back
with an exclamation.

"Confound you!" he cried. "This stuff burns like fire."

"It will pass in a moment," soothed the chemist. "And now, a little
patch, and all will be well."

His idea of a suitable dressing was two inches of stiff and shiny
black plaster that gripped at the skin like a barnacle and looked
like a tragedy. Raleigh surveyed the effect of it in a show-case
mirror gloomily.

"I wonder you didn't put it in a sling while you were about it," he
remarked ungratefully. "People'll think I've been trying to cut my
throat."

"Monsieur should grow a beard," counseled the chemist as he handed
him his change.

Raleigh grunted, disdaining, retort, and passed forth to his waiting
cab. The day had commenced inauspiciously. The night before, smoking
his final cigarette in his upper berth in the wagon-lit, he had
tempted Providence by laying out for himself a programme and a time
schedule; and it looked as if Providence had been unable to resist
the temptation. The business of the firm in which he was junior
partner had taken him to Zurich; he had given himself a week's
holiday in the mountains, and was now on his way back to London. The
train was due to land him in Paris at half-past eight in the morning,
and his plans were clear. First, a taxi to the Cafe de la Paix and
breakfast there under the awning while the day ripened towards the
hours of business; then a small cigar and a stroll along the
liveliness of the boulevard to the offices of the foundry company,
where a heart-to-heart talk with the manager would clear up several
little matters which were giving trouble. Afterwards, a taxi across
the river and a call upon the machine-tool people, get their report
upon the new gear-steels and return to the Gare du Nord in time to
catch the two o'clock train for Calais.

He had settled the order of it to his satisfaction before he pulled
the shade over the lamp and turned over to sleep; and then, next
morning, he had gashed himself while shaving, and the train was forty
minutes late.

"These clothes" there was a narrow slip of mirror between the front
windows of the taxi which reflec