nto them of which he was capable.

Nothing, however, appeared to develop. The door remained closed,
save for brief admissions of bread and market stuff from little boys
on donkey-back or on a bicycle, all of whom were led willingly into
conservation, but none of whom had been into the palace, and though
Billy pressed as close to the door as possible when the boys
knocked, he was only rewarded with a glimpse of the tiled vestibule
and inner court.

To the irate doorkeeper he protested that he was yearning to paint a
palace court, but though he held up gold pieces, the man ordered him
away in fury and spoke menacingly of a stick for such fellows.

Now, however cool and fresh it was in the garden that Saturday, it
was distinctly hot in the dusty street, and by noon, as Billy sat in
the shade beside the palace door, eating the lunch he had brought
and drinking out of a thermos bottle, he reflected that for a man to
cook himself upon a camp stool, feigning to paint and observing an
uneventful door, was the height of Matteawan. He despised
himself--but he returned to the camp stool.

Nothing continued to happen.

Travelers were few. Occasionally a carriage passed; once a couple of
young Englishmen on polo ponies galloped by; once a poor native came
down the road, moving his harem--a donkey-cart load of black
shrouded women, with three half-naked children bouncing on a long
tailboard.

Several groups of veiled women on foot proceeded to the cemetery and
back again.

The one-eyed man sauntered by in vain.

In the heat of the afternoon the wide door suddenly opened and
Captain Kerissen himself appeared on his black horse. He spurred off
at a gallop, intending apparently to ride down the artist on the
way, but changed his mind at the last and dashed past, showering him
with dust from his horse's hoofs. The little donkey-boy, lolling
down the road, started to follow him, crying out for alms in the
name of Allah.

Billy stared up at the windows. Not a handkerchief there, not a
signal, not a note flung into the street! In great derision he
squirted half a tube of cerulean blue upon his canvas.

This, he reflected, was zero in detective work. It was also minus in
adventure.

But one never knows when events are upon the wing. Almost
immediately there came into the flatness of his bored existence a
victoria containing those two English ladies he had met--in the
unconventional way which characterized his meetings with la