This degage person was patently an Englishman, though there were traces
of Oriental ancestry in his cast. The other, he of the doleful habit,
was as unmistakably of Gallic pattern, though he dressed and carried
himself in a thoroughly Anglo-Saxon fashion, and even seemed a trace
intrigued when greeted by a name distinctively French.
For the Englishman, rousing from his appropriated ease, dropped his
book to the floor beside the chair, uprose and extended a cordial hand,
exclaiming: "H'are ye, Monsieur Duchemin?"
To this the other responded, after a slight pause, obscurely enough:
"Oh! ancient history, eh? Well, for the matter of that: How are you,
Mister Wertheimer?"
Their hands fell apart, and Monsieur Duchemin proceeded to do away his
hat and stick and chamois gloves; while his friend, straddling in front
of a cold grate and extending his hands to an imaginary blaze, covered
with a mild complaint the curiosity excited by a brief study of that
face of melancholy.
"Pretty way you've got of making your friends wait on your pleasure.
Here I've wasted upwards of two hours of His Majesty's time.
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