aks Greek perfectly, but I
should have known by his accent here and there that he was not a born
Greek.'

The truth was that Oisin Sarrasin had seen too much in life--seen too
much of life--of places, and peoples, and situations, and so had got his
mind's picture painted out. He had started in life too soon, and
overclouded himself with impressions. His nature had grown languorous
under their too rich variety. His own extraordinary experiences seemed
commonplace to him; he seemed to assume that all men had gone through
just the like. He had seen too much, read too much, been too much. Life
could hardly present him with anything which had not already been a
familiar object or thought to him. Yet he was always on the quiet
look-out for some new principle, some new cause, to stir him into
activity. He had nothing in him of the used-up man--he was curiously the
reverse of the type of the used-up man. He was quietly delighted with
all he had seen and done, and he still longed to add new sights and
doings to his experiences, but he could not easily discover where to
find them. He did not crave merely for new sensations. He was on the
whole a very self-sufficing man--devoted to his wife as she was devoted
to him. He could perfectly well have done without new sensations. But he
had a kind of general idea that he ought to be always doing something
for some cause or somebody, and for a certain time he had not seen any
field on which to develop his Don Quixote instincts. The coming of
Ericson to London reminded him of the Republic of Gloria, and of the
great reforms that were only too great, and, as we have said, he wrote
Ericson up in his newspaper.

Captain Sarrasin had a home in the far southern suburbs, but he had
lately taken a bedroom in Paulo's Hotel. The moment Captain Sarrasin
entered the room the Dictator remembered that he had seen him before.
The Dictator never forgot faces, but he could not always put names to
them, and he was a little surprised to find that he and the soldier of
fortune had met already.

He advanced to meet his visitor with the smile of singular sweetness
which was so attractive to all those on whom it beamed. The Dictator's
sweet smile was as much a part of his success in life--and of his
failure, too, perhaps--as any other quality about him--as his nerve, or
his courage, or his good temper, or his commander-in-chief sort of
genius.

'We have met before, Captain Sarrasin,' he said. 'I remember