be some mistake. Are you sure
that he asked for me?"

There was a pause. Orme heard a few scattered words which indicated that
the clerk was questioning the stranger. Then came the information: "He
says he wishes to see you about a five-dollar bill."

"Oh!" Orme realized that he had no reason to be surprised. "Well, send
him up."

He hung up the receiver and, returning to the table, put the marked bill
back into his pocket-book and slipped into a drawer the paper on which he
had copied the inscription.

CHAPTER II

SENHOR PORITOL

When Orme answered the knock at the door a singular young man stood at
the threshold. He was short, wiry, and very dark. His nose was long and
complacently tilted at the end. His eyes were small and very black. His
mouth was a wide, uncertain slit. In his hand he carried a light cane and
a silk hat of the flat-brimmed French type. And he wore a gray sack suit,
pressed and creased with painful exactness.

"Come in, Senhor Poritol," said Orme, motioning toward a chair.

The little man entered, with short, rapid steps. He drew from his pocket
a clean pocket-handkerchief, which he unfolded and spread out on the
surface of the table. Upon the handkerchief he carefully placed his hat
and then, after an ineffectual effort to make it stand against the table
edge, laid his cane on the floor.

Not until all this ceremony had been completed did he appear to notice
Orme. But now he turned, widening his face into a smile and extending his
hand, which Orme took rather dubiously--it was supple and moist.

"Oh, this is Mr. Orme, is it not?"

"Yes," said Orme, freeing himself from the unpleasant handshake.

"Mr. _Robert_ Orme?"

"Yes, that is my name. What can I do for you?"

For a moment Senhor Poritol appeared to hover like a timid bird; then he
seated himself on the edge of a chair, only the tips of his toes touching
the floor. His eyes danced brightly.

"To begin with, Mr. Orme," he said, "I am charmed to meet you--very
charmed." He rolled his "r's" after a fashion that need not be
reproduced. "And in the second place," he continued, "while actually I am
a foreigner in your dear country, I regard myself as in spirit one of
your natives. I came here when a boy, and was educated at your great
University of Princeton."

"You are a Portuguese--I infer from your name," said Orme.

"Oh, dear, no! Oh, no, no, no!" exclaimed Senhor Poritol, tapping the
floor nervously with his toes. "