Suddenly the door of the dining-room opened.

“Ah, here comes Jenkins!” exclaimed the Nabob delightedly.  “Welcome, welcome, doctor.  How are you, my friend?”

A smile to those around, a hearty shake of his host’s hand, and Jenkins sat down opposite him, next to Monpavon, before a place at the table which a servant had just prepared in all haste and without having received any order, exactly as at a table d’hote.  Among those preoccupied and feverish faces, this one at any rate stood out in contrast by its good humour, its cheerfulness, and that loquacious and flattering benevolence which makes the Irish in a way the Gascons of England.  And what a splendid appetite!  With what heartiness, what ease of conscience he used his white teeth as he talked!

“Well, Jansoulet, you have read it?”

“What?”

“How, then! you do not know?  You have not read what the Messenger says about you this morning?”

Beneath the dark tan of his cheeks the Nabob blushed like a child, and, his eyes shining with pleasure: 

“Is it possible—­the Messenger has spoken of me?”

“Through two columns.  How is it that Moessard has not shown it to you?”

“Oh,” put in Moessard modestly, “it was not worth the trouble.”

He was a little journalist, with a fair complexion and smart in his dress, sufficiently good-looking, but with a face which presented that worn appearance noticeable as the special mark of waiters in night-restaurants, actors, and light women, and produced by conventional grimacing and the wan reflection of gaslight.  He was reputed to be the paid lover of an exiled and profligate queen.  The rumour was whispered around him, and, in his own world, secured him an envied and despicable position.

Jansoulet insisted on reading the article, impatient to know what had been said of him.  Unfortunately Jenkins had left his copy at the duke’s.

“Let some one go fetch me a Messenger quickly,” said the Nabob to the servant behind him.

Moessard intervened.

“It is needless.  I must have the thing on me somewhere.”

And with the absence of ceremony of the tavern habitue, of the reporter who scribbles his paragraph with his glass beside him, the journalist drew out a pocket-book, crammed full of notes, stamped papers, newspaper cuttings, notes written on glazed paper with crests, which he proceeded to litter over the table, pushing away his plate in order to search for the proof of his article.

“There you are.”  He passed it over to Jansoulet; but Jenkins besought him: 

“No, no; read it aloud.”