After a low, scornful “Of course” he seemed now to hold on the wall with his fixed stare the vision of that city office, “at the back of Cannon Street Station,” while he growled and mouthed a fragmentary description, jerking his chin up now and then, as if angry.

It was, according to his account, a modest place of business, not shady in any sense, but out of the way, in a small street now rebuilt from end to end.  “Seven doors from the Cheshire Cat public house under the railway bridge.  I used to take my lunch there when my business called me to the city.  Cloete would come in to have his chop and make the girl laugh.  No need to talk much, either, for that.  Nothing but the way he would twinkle his spectacles on you and give a twitch of his thick mouth was enough to start you off before he began one of his little tales.  Funny fellow, Cloete.  C-l-o-e-t-e—­Cloete.”

“What was he—­a Dutchman?” I asked, not seeing in the least what all this had to do with the Westport boatmen and the Westport summer visitors and this extraordinary old fellow’s irritable view of them as liars and fools.  “Devil knows,” he grunted, his eyes on the wall as if not to miss a single movement of a cinematograph picture.  “Spoke nothing but English, anyway.  First I saw him—­ comes off a ship in dock from the States—­passenger.  Asks me for a small hotel near by.  Wanted to be quiet and have a look round for a few days.  I took him to a place—­friend of mine. . .  Next time—­ in the City—­Hallo!  You’re very obliging—­have a drink.  Talks plenty about himself.  Been years in the States.  All sorts of business all over the place.  With some patent medicine people, too.  Travels.  Writes advertisements and all that.  Tells me funny stories.  Tall, loose-limbed fellow.  Black hair up on end, like a brush; long face, long legs, long arms, twinkle in his specs, jocular way of speaking—­in a low voice. . .  See that?”

I nodded, but he was not looking at me.

“Never laughed so much in my life.  The beggar—­would make you laugh telling you how he skinned his own father.  He was up to that, too.  A man who’s been in the patent-medicine trade will be up to anything from pitch-and-toss to wilful murder.  And that’s a bit of hard truth for you.  Don’t mind what they do—­think they can carry off anything and talk themselves out of anything—­all the world’s a fool to them.  Business man, too, Cloete.  Came over with a few hundred pounds.  Looking for something to do—­in a quiet way.  Nothing like the old country, after all, says he. . .  And so we part—­I with more drinks in me than I was used to.  After a time, perhaps six months or so, I run up against him again in Mr. George Dunbar’s office.  Yes, that office.  It wasn’t often that I . . .  However, there was a bit of his cargo in a ship in dock that I wanted to ask Mr. George about.  In comes Cloete out of the room at the back with some papers in his hand.  Partner.  You understand?”