the apparently boneless--hand of a visibly flabbergasted gentleman, who
suffered him for the moment solely upon suspicion, if his expression
were a reliable index of his emotion.

In the heyday of his career as a cunning and successful promoter of
plays and players, Jules Max indulged a hankering for the picturesquely
eccentric that sat oddly upon his commonplace personality. The hat that
had made Hammerstein famous Max had appropriated--straight crown, flat
brim and immaculate gloss--bodily. Beneath it his face was small of
feature, and fat. Its trim little mustache lent it an air of
conventionality curiously at war with a pince-nez which sheltered his
near-sighted eyes, its enormous, round, horn-rimmed lenses sagging to
one side with the weight of a wide black ribbon. His nose was
insignificant, his mouth small and pursy. His short, round little body
was invariably by day dressed in a dark gray morning-coat, white-edged
waistcoat, assertively-striped trousers, and patent-leather shoes with
white spats. He had a passion for lemon-coloured gloves of thinnest kid
and slender malacca walking-sticks. His dignity was an awful thing, as
ingrained as his strut.

He reasserted the dignity now with a jerk of his maltreated hand, as
well as with an appreciable effort betrayed by his resentful glare.

"Do I know you?" he demanded haughtily. "If not, what the devil do you
mean by such conduct, sir?"

With a laugh, Whitaker took him by the shoulders and spun him round
smartly into a convenient chair.

"Sit still and let me get a _good_ look," he implored. "Think of it!
Juley Max daring to put on side with me! The impudence of you, Juley!
I've a great mind to play horse with you. How dare you go round the
streets looking like that, anyway?"

Max recovered his breath, readjusted his glasses, and resumed his stare.

"Either," he observed, "you're Hugh Whitaker come to life or a damned
outrage."

"Both, if you like."

"You sound like both," complained the little man. "Anyway, you were
drowned in the Philippines or somewhere long ago, and I never waste time
on a dead one.... Drummond--" He turned to the lawyer with a vastly
business-like air.

"No, you don't!" Whitaker insisted, putting himself between the two men.
"I admit that you're a great man; you might at least admit that I'm a
live one."

A mollified smile moderated the small man's manner. "That's a bargain,"
he said, extending a pale yellow paw; "I'm glad to see y