gh state of nervous tension when, on
the morning of the fourteenth day of May, he strolled into the
Waldorf-Astoria and inquired at the desk for Sir Thomas Drummond.

There was no Sir Thomas stopping at the hotel, although a Mr. T.
Drummond from London had arrived on the _Campania_ the day before. Mr.
Jackson Wylie placed the heel of his right shoe upon the favorite corn
of his left foot and bore down upon it heavily. He must be
getting into his dotage, he reflected, or else the idea of a
five-million-dollar job had him rattled. Of course Sir Thomas would
not use his title.

At the rear desk he had his card blown up through the tube to "Mr. T.
Drummond," and a few moments later was invited to take the elevator.

Arriving at the sixth floor, he needed no page to guide him; boots
pointed his way to the apartment of the distinguished visitor as plainly
as a lettered sign-board; boots of all descriptions--hunting-boots,
riding-boots, street shoes, lowshoes, pumps, sandals--black ones and tan
ones--all in a row outside the door. It was a typically English display.
Evidently Sir Thomas Drummond was a personage of the most extreme
importance and traveled in befitting style, Mr. Wylie told himself.
Nothing was missing from the collection, unless perhaps a pair of rubber
hip-boots.

A stoop-shouldered old man with a marked accent and a port-wine nose
showed Mr. Wylie into a parlor where the first object upon which
his active eyes alighted was a mass of blue-prints. He knew these
drawings; he had figured on them himself. He likewise noted a hat-box
and a great, shapeless English bag, both plastered crazily with hotel
and steamship labels hailing from every quarter of the world. It was
plain to be seen that Sir Thomas was a globe-trotter.

"Mr. Drummond begs you to be seated," the valet announced, with what
seemed an unnecessary accent on the "mister," then moved silently out.

Mr. Wylie remarked to himself upon the value of discreet servants.
They were very valuable; very hard to get in America. This must be
some lifelong servitor in his lordship's family.

There was no occasion to inquire the identity of the tall, florid
Englishman in tweeds who entered a moment later, a bundle of estimates
in his hand. "Sir Thomas Drummond, Chairman of the Royal Barrata
Bridge Commission," was written all over him in large type.

His lordship did not go to the trouble of welcoming his visitor, but
scanned him frigidly through his glass