During the next few days Mr. Jackson Wylie, Sr., had hard work to hold himself in, and he was at a high state of nervous tension when, on the morning of the fourteenth day of May, he strolled into the Waldorf-Astoria and inquired at the desk for Sir Thomas Drummond.

There was no Sir Thomas stopping at the hotel, although a Mr. T. Drummond from London had arrived on the Campania the day before.  Mr. Jackson Wylie placed the heel of his right shoe upon the favorite corn of his left foot and bore down upon it heavily.  He must be getting into his dotage, he reflected, or else the idea of a five-million-dollar job had him rattled.  Of course Sir Thomas would not use his title.

At the rear desk he had his card blown up through the tube to “Mr. T. Drummond,” and a few moments later was invited to take the elevator.

Arriving at the sixth floor, he needed no page to guide him; boots pointed his way to the apartment of the distinguished visitor as plainly as a lettered sign-board; boots of all descriptions—­hunting-boots, riding-boots, street shoes, lowshoes, pumps, sandals—­black ones and tan ones—­all in a row outside the door.  It was a typically English display.  Evidently Sir Thomas Drummond was a personage of the most extreme importance and traveled in befitting style, Mr. Wylie told himself.  Nothing was missing from the collection, unless perhaps a pair of rubber hip-boots.

A stoop-shouldered old man with a marked accent and a port-wine nose showed Mr. Wylie into a parlor where the first object upon which his active eyes alighted was a mass of blue-prints.  He knew these drawings; he had figured on them himself.  He likewise noted a hat-box and a great, shapeless English bag, both plastered crazily with hotel and steamship labels hailing from every quarter of the world.  It was plain to be seen that Sir Thomas was a globe-trotter.

“Mr. Drummond begs you to be seated,” the valet announced, with what seemed an unnecessary accent on the “mister,” then moved silently out.

Mr. Wylie remarked to himself upon the value of discreet servants.  They were very valuable; very hard to get in America.  This must be some lifelong servitor in his lordship’s family.

There was no occasion to inquire the identity of the tall, florid Englishman in tweeds who entered a moment later, a bundle of estimates in his hand.  “Sir Thomas Drummond, Chairman of the Royal Barrata Bridge Commission,” was written all over him in large type.

His lordship did not go to the trouble of welcoming his visitor, but scanned him frigidly through his glasses.

“You are Mr. Jackson Wylie, Senior?” he demanded, abruptly.

“That is my name.”

“President of the Atlantic Bridge Company, of Newark, New Jersey?”

“The same.”

“You received a cablegram from your son in London?”

“Yes, your lordship.”

Sir Thomas made a gesture as if to forego the title.  “Let me see it, please.”