He looked more than ever a giant in the midst of the little tropical people, and seemed to feel his size in the general diminutive setting.  Yet there was balance and fitness about his splendid physical organization, which suggested that he could be quick as a mink in action.  He chaffed the native who waited upon him, and his face softened into charming boyishness as he laughed.  His mouth was fresh as a child’s, but on a scale of grandeur.  Bedient found himself smiling with him.  Then there was that irresistible folding about the eyes when he laughed, which is Irish as sin, and quite as attractive.  Left to himself he fell to brooding, and his brow puzzled over some matter in the frank bored way of one pinned to a textbook.  Bedient sat down at the other’s table.  Acquaintance was as agreeably received as offered.

The stranger’s name was Jim Framtree.  He had been on the Island for several weeks, and intended to stay for awhile.  He liked Equatoria well enough—­as well, in fact, as a man could like any place, when he was barred from the real trophy-room in the house of the world, New York.

“I’m sailing for New York in the morning,” Bedient said.

Framtree shivered and fell silent.

“You’ve found work that you like here?” Bedient asked simply.

The other glanced at him humorously, and yet with a bit of intensity, too,—­as if searching for the meaning under such an unadorned question.

“I seem to have caught on with Senor Rey at The Pleiad,” he replied.

“Ah—­”

“I’m afraid you’re making a mistake, sir,” Framtree added quickly.  “I’m not barred from New York on any cashier matter.  You know when something you want badly—­and can’t have—­is in a town—­that isn’t the place for you....  Even if you like that town best on earth....  What I mean is, I’m not using The Pleiad as a hiding proposition.”

“I wasn’t thinking of that,” Bedient said.

“I suppose it would be natural—­down here——­”

“But I saw you first.”

“Um-m.”

“I was only thinking,” Bedient resumed, “that if the establishment of Senor Rey palled upon you at any time, I’d like to have you come up and see me in the hills....  I’d be glad to have you come, anyway.  I may not be very long in New York—­”

* * * * *

“That’s mighty good of you,” Framtree declared, and yet it was obvious that he could not regard the invitation as purely a friendly impulse, even if he wished to.  “I remember now.  I’ve heard of your big place up there.”

“Perhaps, I’d better explain that I wasn’t thinking of Island politics—­when I asked you....  Queer how one has to explain things down here.  I’ve noticed that it’s hard for folks to go straight at a thing.”