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wrong sort of client feel more like a piece of cheese – and a cheap yellow piece of cheese at that – than any other similar establishment in the world. The personnel of its staff are selected primarily for their ability to curl the upper lip and raise the eyebrows just that extra quarter of an inch which makes all the difference.
    Bill, as his photograph had shown, was a splendidly virile young man, and if you had had a mad bull you wished dealt with, you could have placed it in no better hands. But there are times when this business of being large and muscular pays no dividends, and in the super-aristocratic interior of Barribault's you are better served by a slim elegance and up-to-the-minute tailoring.
    By nature diffident, and conscious that his clothes, however admirably suited to some Bohemian revel at a Chelsea studio,
were out of place in this temple of the best people, Bill had been reduced by his interview with a polished plenipotentiary in the dining-room to a state of almost soluble discomfort. It was all too plain to him that the plenipotentiary did not like his tie and was surprised and resentful that anyone in such baggy trousers should be proposing to lunch on the premises. He had tottered out feeling that his hands and feet had been affected by some sort of elephantiasis and that his outer appearance was that of a tramp cyclist.
    And when he reached the swing doors which led to the street, there, standing on the sidewalk, was the uniformed exquisite who looked like an ex-King of Ruritania and who had glanced at him as he came in with such an obvious sneer. And it suddenly came over Bill like a wave that he was incapable of passing this man again unless he had a drink first, to fortify him. That was why he had swerved away and headed so abruptly for the bar.
    Tipton Plimsoll at this moment had just disposed of his first and was watching the barman shake up another.
    The thoughtful soul who built the bar at Barribault's Hotel constructed the upper half of its door of glass, so that young men about town, coming to slake their thirst, should be able to take a preliminary peep into its interior and assure themselves that it contained none of their creditors. Pressing his nose against this, Bill observed with regret that there was a tall thin fellow seated at the counter, and he drew back, thinking this over. He was not at all sure that in his present disordered condition he was capable of enduring the society of tall thin fellows.
    A short while later, for the urge to get a couple of quick ones was very keen, he took another look. But once more he found himself unequal to entering. The tall thin fellow gave him the impression of being just the sort of man who would take one
quick stare at the knees of his trousers and turn away with a short, sardonic laugh. He received this impression more strongly the third time he peered in, and still more strongly the fourth time.
    It was as he was coming up for the second time that Tipton Plimsoll first became aware of him. Over the bar of Barribault's Hotel, reflecting the door, is a large mirror, tastefully fringed with bottles and advertisements of bottles. And it was suddenly borne in upon Tipton, as he sat sipping his third, that there kept appearing and disappearing in this mirror a hideous face.
    At first the phenomenon occasioned him no concern. He directed the barman's attention to it with some amusement.
    'Doesn't seem able to make up his mind,' he said.
    'Sir?' said the barman.
    Tipton explained that a bimbo with a face like a gorilla had started peeping in at the door and vanishing again, and the barman said that he had observed nothing. Tipton said 'Oh, hadn't he?' and for the first time became a little thoughtful. It suddenly occurred to him that the apparition's eyes, meeting his, had seemed to hold in them a sort of message or warning – at any rate, they had gazed at him with a singular fixity; and, recalling E. Jimpson Murgatroyd's words, he was conscious