start. A waiter was standing behind him, a small, dark,
hairy man. He was looking into the middle distance with the abstracted
air which waiters cultivate.

Roland stared at him, but he did not move.

That evening, returning to his flat, Roland was paralyzed by the sight
of the word "Beware" scrawled across the mirror in his bedroom. It had
apparently been done with a diamond. He rang the bell.

"Sir?" said the competent valet. ("Competent valets are in attendance at
each of these flats."--_Advt._)

"Has any one been here since I left?"

"Yes, sir. A foreign-looking gentleman called. He said he knew you, sir.
I showed him into your room."

The same night, well on in the small hours, the telephone rang. Roland
dragged himself out of bed.

"Hullo?"

"Is that Senor Bleke?"

"Yes. What is it?"

"Beware!"

Things were becoming intolerable. Roland had a certain amount of
nerve, but not enough to enable him to bear up against this sinister
persecution. Yet what could he do? Suppose he did beware to the extent
of withdrawing his support from the royalist movement, what then?
Bombito. If ever there was a toad under the harrow, he was that toad.
And all because a perfectly respectful admiration for the caoutchouc
had led him to occupy a stage-box several nights in succession at the
theater where the peerless Maraquita tied herself into knots.

* * * * *

There was an air of unusual excitement in Maraquita's manner at their
next meeting.

"We have been in communication with Him," she whispered. "He will
receive you. He will give an audience to the Savior of Paranoya."

"Eh? Who will?"

"Our beloved Alejandro. He wishes to see his faithful servant. We are to
go to him at once."

"Where?"

"At his own house. He will receive you in person."

Such was the quality of the emotions through which he had been passing
of late, that Roland felt but a faint interest at the prospect of
meeting face to face a genuine--if exiled--monarch. The thought did flit
through his mind that they would sit up a bit in old Fineberg's office
if they could hear of it, but it brought him little consolation.

The cab drew up at a gloomy-looking house in a fashionable square.
Roland rang the door-bell. There seemed a certain element of the prosaic
in the action. He wondered what he should say to the butler.

There was, however, no need for words. The door opened, and they were
ushered in without parley