a proposal to you," he said. "My business is not of the
kind that can be put out of mind, even for a few days, and there are
reasons"--he glanced over his shoulder towards the cabin door, and gave
vent to a short laugh--"why I did not want to bring any of my own staff
with me. If you care for a short tour, all expenses paid at slap-up
hotels and a ten-pound note in your pocket at the end, you can have it
for two hours' work a day."

I suppose my face expressed my acceptance, for he did not wait for me
to speak.

"Only one thing I stipulate for," he added, "that you mind your own
business and keep your mouth shut. You're by yourself, aren't you?"

"Yes," I told him.

He wrote on a sheet of his notebook, and, tearing it out, handed it to
me.

"That's your hotel at Antwerp," he said. "You are Mr. Horatio Jones's
secretary." He chuckled to himself as he repeated the name, which
certainly did not fit him. "Knock at my sitting-room door at nine
o'clock tomorrow morning. Good night!"

He ended the conversation as abruptly as he had begun it, and returned
to his cabin.

I got a glimpse of him next morning, coming out of the hotel bureau. He
was speaking to the manager in French, and had evidently given
instructions concerning me, for I found myself preceded by an
obsequious waiter to quite a charming bedroom on the second floor,
while the "English breakfast" placed before me later in the coffee-room
was of a size and character that in those days I did not often enjoy.
About the work, also, he was as good as his word. I was rarely
occupied for more than two hours each morning. The duties consisted
chiefly of writing letters and sending off telegrams. The letters he
signed and had posted himself, so that I never learnt his real
name--not during that fortnight--but I gathered enough to be aware that
he was a man whose business interests must have been colossal and
world-wide.

He never introduced me to "Mrs. Horatio Jones," and after a few days he
seemed to be bored with her, so that often I would take her place as
his companion in afternoon excursions.

I could not help liking the man. Strength always compels the adoration
of youth; and there was something big and heroic about him. His
daring, his swift decisions, his utter unscrupulousness, his occasional
cruelty when necessity seemed to demand it. One could imagine him in
earlier days a born leader of savage hordes, a lover of fighting for
its own sak