Fischer’s reply was almost ungracious.
He watched their departure in silence, and afterwards
leaned further back in his chair. With long,
nervous fingers he drew a black cigar from his case
and lit it. Then he folded his arms. For
more than half an hour he sat there motionless, smoking
furiously. He looked out into the chaos of the
windy darkness, he heard voices riding upon the seas,
shrieking and calling to him, voices to which he had
been deaf too long. The burden of these later
years of turbulent, brazen, selfish struggling, rolled
back. He had been a sentimentalist once, a willing
seeker after things which seemed to have passed him
by. At his age, he told himself, a man should
still find more than one place in the world.
CHAPTER IX
James Van Teyl glanced curiously at the small, dark
figure standing patiently before him, and then back
again at the wireless cable which he held in his fingers.
He was just back from a tiring day in Wall Street,
and was reclining in the most comfortable easy-chair
of his Hotel Plaza sitting-room.
“Gee!” he murmured. “This beats
me. The last thing I should have thought we wanted
here was a valet. The fellow who looks after this
suite has scarcely anything else to do. What did
you say your name was?”
“Nikasti, sir.”
Van Teyl carefully reconsidered the cable. It
certainly seemed to leave no room for misunderstanding.
Please engage for our service, as valet, Nikasti.
See that he enters on his duties at once. Hope
land this evening. Your sister on board sends
love.—F.
“Well that seems clear enough,” the young
man muttered, thrusting the form into his waistcoat
pocket. “You’re here to stay, I guess,
Nikasti? I see you’ve brought your kit
along.”
“In case you decided to engage me, sir,”
the man replied.
“Oh, you are engaged right enough,” Van
Teyl assured him. “You’d better make
the best job you can of putting out my evening clothes.
If you ring for the floor valet, he’ll help
you. The bedrooms are through that door.”
“Very good, sir!”
“I am going down to the barber’s now,”
Van Teyl continued, rising to his feet. “Just
remember this, Nikasti—what a name, by the
bye!”
“I could be called Kato,” the man suggested.
“Kato for me all the time,” his prospective
employer agreed. “Well, listen. My
sister, Miss Van Teyl, arrives from Europe on the Lapland
this evening. If she comes in or rings up, say
I’m here and I want to see her at once.
You understand?”
“I understand, sir.”
Van Teyl strolled out, and Kato disappeared into the
inner room. The floor valet, dressed in the dark
blue livery of the hotel, was already laying out his
master’s dinner clothes. He eyed the intruder
a little truculently.
“Who are you, anyway?” he inquired.
“My name is Nikasti,” was the quiet reply.
“Mr. Van Teyl has engaged me as his valet, to
wait upon him and Mr. Fischer.”
