lightning action. Any man accustomed to the
Stock Exchange learns to think quickly.

"One moment!" he cried; "I see we are right at your door. May I just
run in and use your telephone? I want to call up Boulder for a moment."

Two minutes later Mr. Fyshe was saying into the telephone, "Oh, is that
you, Boulder? I was looking for you in vain today--wanted you to meet
the Duke of Dulham, who came in quite unexpectedly from New York; felt
sure you'd like to meet him. Wanted you at the club for dinner, and now
it turns out that the club's all upset--waiters' strike or some such
rascality--and the Palaver, so I hear, is in the same fix. Could you
possibly--"

Here Mr. Fyshe paused, listening a moment, and then went on, "Yes, yes;
an excellent idea--most kind of you. Pray do send your motor to the
hotel and give the Duke a bite of dinner. No, I wouldn't join you,
thanks. Most kind. Good night--"

And within a few minutes more the motor of Mr. Boulder was rolling down
from Plutoria Avenue to the Grand Palaver Hotel.

What passed between Mr. Boulder and the Duke that evening is not known.
That they must have proved congenial company to one another there is no
doubt. In fact, it would seem that, dissimilar as they were in many
ways, they found a common bond of interest in sport. And it is quite
likely that Mr. Boulder may have mentioned that he had a
hunting-lodge--what the Duke would call a shooting-box--in Wisconsin
woods, and that it was made of logs, rough cedar logs not squared, and
that the timber wolves and others which surrounded it were of a
ferocity without parallel.

Those who know the Duke best could measure the effect of that upon his
temperament.

At any rate, it is certain that Mr. Lucullus Fyshe at his
breakfast-table next morning chuckled with suppressed joy to read in
the _Plutopian Citizen_ the item:

"We learn that the Duke of Dulham, who has been paying a brief visit to
the City, leaves this morning with Mr. Asmodeus Boulder for the
Wisconsin woods. We understand that Mr. Boulder intends to show his
guest, who is an ardent sportsman, something of the American wolf."

* * * * *

And so the Duke went whirling westwards and northwards with Mr. Boulder
in the drawing-room end of a Pullman car, that was all littered up with
double-barrelled express rifles and leather game bags and lynx catchers
and wolf traps and Heaven knows what. And the Duke had on his very
roughest sporting-s