upon the sacred syllable
"Om." It was a striking illustration of the untruth of appearances, for
his contempt for the world was of a severely practical kind. There was
nothing oriental about Ricardo but the amazing quietness of his pose.
Mr. Jones was also very quiet. He had let his head sink on the rolled-up
rug, and lay stretched out on his side with his back to the light. In
that position the shadows gathered in the cavities of his eyes made
them look perfectly empty. When he spoke, his ghostly voice had only to
travel a few inches straight into Ricardo's left ear.

"Why don't you say something, now that you've got me awake?"

"I wonder if you were sleeping as sound as you are trying to make out,
sir," said the unmoved Ricardo.

"I wonder," repeated Mr. Jones. "At any rate, I was resting quietly!"

"Come, sir!" Ricardo's whisper was alarmed. "You don't mean to say
you're going to be bored?"

"No."

"Quite right!" The secretary was very much relieved. "There's no
occasion to be, I can tell you, sir," he whispered earnestly. "Anything
but that! If I didn't say anything for a bit, it ain't because there
isn't plenty to talk about. Ay, more than enough."

"What's the matter with you?" breathed out his patron. "Are you going to
turn pessimist?"

"Me turn? No, sir! I ain't of those that turn. You may call me hard
names, if you like, but you know very well that I ain't a croaker."
Ricardo changed his tone. "If I said nothing for a while, it was because
I was meditating over the Chink, sir."

"You were? Waste of time, my Martin. A Chinaman is unfathomable."

Ricardo admitted that this might be so. Anyhow, a Chink was neither
here nor there, as a general thing, unfathomable as he might be; but a
Swedish baron wasn't--couldn't be! The woods were full of such barons.

"I don't know that he is so tame," was Mr. Jones's remark, in a
sepulchral undertone.

"How do you mean, sir? He ain't a rabbit, of course. You couldn't
hypnotize him, as I saw you do to more than one Dago, and other kinds
of tame citizens, when it came to the point of holding them down to a
game."

"Don't you reckon on that," murmured plain Mr. Jones seriously.

"No, sir, I don't, though you have a wonderful power of the eye. It's a
fact."

"I have a wonderful patience," remarked Mr. Jones dryly.

A dim smile flitted over the lips of the faithful Ricardo who never
raised his head.

"I don't want to try you too much, sir, but this is like no