Montague delivered the message, and at seven o’clock they went downstairs.  In the reception room they met Oliver and his friend, and it was all that Montague could do to repress a look of consternation.

The name of the personage was Mr. Gamble.  He was a little man, a trifle over five feet high, and so fat that one wondered how he could get about alone; his chin and neck were a series of rolls of fat.  His face was round like a full moon, and out of it looked two little eyes like those of a pig.  It was only after studying them for a while that one discovered that they twinkled shrewdly.

Mr. Gamble was altogether the vulgarest-looking personage that Alice Montague had ever met.  He put out a fat little hand to her, and she touched it gingerly, and then gazed at Oliver and his brother in helpless dismay.

“Good evening.  Good evening,” he began volubly.  “I am charmed to meet you.  Mr. Montague, I have heard so much about you from your brother that I feel as if we were old friends.”

There was a moment’s pause.  “Shall we go into the dining-room?” asked Montague.

He did not much relish the stares which would follow them, but he could see no way out of the difficulty.  They went into the room and seated themselves, Montague wondering in a flash whether Mr. Gamble’s arms would be long enough to reach to the table in front of him.

“A warm evening,” he said, puffing slightly.  “I have been on the train all day.”

“Mr. Gamble comes from Pittsburg,” interposed Oliver.

“Indeed?” said Montague, striving to make conversation.  “Are you in business there?”

“No, I am out of business,” said Mr. Gamble, with a smile.  “Made my pile, so to speak, and got out.  I want to see the world a bit before I get too old.”

The waiter came to take their orders; in the meantime Montague darted an indignant glance at his brother, who sat and smiled serenely.  Then Montague caught Alice’s eye, and he could almost hear her saying to him, “What in the world am I going to talk about?”

But it proved not very difficult to talk with the gentleman from Pittsburg.  He appeared to know all the gossip of the Metropolis, and he cheerfully supplied the topics of conversation.  He had been to Palm Beach and Hot Springs during the winter, and told about what he had seen there; he was going to Newport in the summer, and he talked about the prospects there.  If he had the slightest suspicion of the fact that all his conversation was not supremely interesting to Montague and his cousin, he gave no hint of it.

After he had disposed of the elaborate dinner which Oliver ordered, Mr. Gamble proposed that they visit one of the theatres.  He had a box all ready, it seemed, and Oliver accepted for Alice before Montague could say a word for her.  He spoke for himself, however,—­he had important work to do, and must be excused.

He went upstairs and shook off his annoyance and plunged into his work.  Sometime after midnight, when he had finished, he went out for a breath of fresh air, and as he returned he found Oliver and his friend standing in the lobby of the hotel.