the tea, he
jumped vivaciously out of bed, veiled the splendour of his pyjamas
beneath a quilted toga, and disappeared into a dressing-room, whistling.

'Shawn!' he cried out from his bath, when he heard the rattle of the
tea-tray.

'Yes, sir?'

'Play me the Chopin Fantasie, will you. I feel like it.'

'Certainly, sir,' said Simon, and paused. 'Which particular one do you
desire me to render, sir?'

'There is only one, Shawn, for piano solo.'

'I beg pardon, sir.'

The gentle plashing of water mingled with the strains of one of the
greatest of all musical compositions, as interpreted by Simon Shawn with
the aid of an ingenious contrivance the patentees of which had spent
twenty thousand pounds in advertising it.

'Very good, Shawn,' said Shawn's master, coming forward in his
shirt-sleeves as the last echoes of a mighty chord expired under the
dome. He meditatively stroked his graying beard while the pianist
returned to the tea-tray.

'And, Shawn--'

'Yes, sir?'

'I want a hat.'

'A hat, sir?'

'A lady's hat.'

'Yes, sir.'

'Run down into Department 42, there's a good fellow, and see if you can
find me a lady's hat of dark-blue straw, wide brim, trimmed chiefly with
a garland of pinkish rosebuds.'

'A lady's hat of dark-blue straw, wide brim, trimmed chiefly with
pinkish rosebuds, sir?'

'Precisely. Here, you're forgetting the token.'

He detached a gold medallion from his watch-chain, and handed it to
Shawn, who departed with it and with the tea-tray.

Two minutes later, having climbed the staircase between the inner and
outer domes, he stood, fully clad in a light-gray suit, on the highest
platform of the immense building, whose occidental facade is the glory
of Sloane Street and one of the marvels of the metropolis. Far above him
a gigantic flag spread its dazzling folds to the sun and the breeze. On
the white ground of the flag, in purple letters seven feet high, was
traced the single word, 'HUGO.'

From his eyrie he could see half the West End of London. Sloane Street
stretched north and south like a ruled line, and along that line two
hurrying processions of black dots approached each other, and met and
vanished below him; they constituted the first division of his army of
three thousand five hundred employes.

He leaned over the balustrade, and sniffed the pure air with exultant,
eager nostrils. He was forty-six. He did not feel forty-six, however. In
common with every man of forty-