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 supplicant did when he thought of the interview before him. He knew that he ought to get it over quickly; but when he considered the direct course of sending a note to Tinker's apartment asking him for a few minutes as soon as possible, his gorge rose and he knew that he couldn't force himself to write such a note. Since he couldn't, he fell back upon opportunism and gave himself a respite until the morrow;—groaning aloud, he postponed the interview until then.

An hour later, as he sat at a small table against the wall in the hotel dining-room, he postponed it permanently. With no other help visible in heaven or earth, he definitely abandoned that appeal to Tinker which was the purpose of his journey, and abandoned himself with it. Common sense was all against such an abandonment; nevertheless, his reasons were creditable.

The many tables in the room were chattered over by embellished cosmopolites piquant in variety;—every racial shade of swarthiness, of ruddiness, of pallor seemed to be displayed as if in some decorous competition for a prize. Richly dressed and handsome golden-skinned ladies dined with covertly wild-eyed sleek brown gentlemen; flamboyant ladies,