“Well now, cut along, Joe, and get ready.  I mean to put in some real hard work with you this afternoon.”

“Right-o, sir!” nodded Joe eagerly.  “Lord, but we’ve missed you terrible—­the Old Un an’ me.”

“Glad of it, Joe!  Tell Patterson to have my bath ready when we’ve finished.  Off with you—­drive in the Fifth Avenue entrance.”

Joe nodded, and the big car turned and crept silently away, while Ravenslee, trundling onward, turned off to the left and so into a very large, exceedingly neat garage where stood five or six automobiles of various patterns in one of which, a luxurious limousine, an old, old man snored blissfully.  At the rumble of the barrow, however, this ancient being choked upon a snore, coughed, swore plaintively, and finally sat up.  Perceiving Ravenslee, he blinked, rubbed his eyes, and stepping from the car very nimbly despite his years, faced the intruder with a ferocious scowl.

He was indeed a very ancient man, though very nattily dressed from spotless collar to shiny patent leather shoes, a small, dandified, bright-eyed man whose broken nose and battered features bore eloquent testimony to long and hard usage.

“’Ook it!” he croaked, with square bony jaw fiercely outthrust.  “We don’t want no peanuts ’ere, d’j ’ear?  ’Op off, ’ook it before I break every blessed bone in yer bloomin’ body!”

“What, Old Un, don’t you know me, either?”

“Lumme!” exclaimed the little old man, blinking beneath hoary brows.  “Ho, lor’ lumme, it’s ’im!  Blimy, it’s the Guv’nor—­’ow do, Guv!” and shooting immaculate cuffs over bony wrists he extended a clawlike hand.

“How are you, Old Un?”

“Well, sir, what with the rheumatix an’ a stiff j’int or two an’ a touch o’ lumbager, not to mention all my other ailments, I ain’t quite s’ spry as I was!”

“But you look very well!”

“That’s where your heyes deceives you, Guv.  A great sufferer I be, though patient under haffliction, ho, yus—­except for a swear now an’ then which do me a power o’ good—­yus!  If I was to tell you all the woes as my poor old carkiss is hair to, you could write a book on ’em—­a big ‘un.  I got everything the matter wi’ me, I ‘ave, from a thick ear an’ broke nose as I took in Brummagem sixty an’ five years ago to a hactive liver.”

“A what?” enquired Ravenslee.

“A hactive liver.  Lord, Guv, my liver gets that hactive lately as I can’t set still—­Joe knows, ax Joe!  All as I ain’t got o’ human woes is toothache, not ‘avin’ no teeth to ache, y’ see, an’ them s’ rotten as it ’ud make yer ‘eart bleed.  An’ then I get took short o’ breath—­look at me now, dang it!”

“Why, then, sit down, Old Un,” said Ravenslee, drawing up a somewhat worn armchair.  “Joe and I are going at it hard and fast this afternoon, and I want you to time the rounds.”  And he proceeded to remove his garments.