These little amenities completed, they sauntered about the beautiful building, Shirley pointing out the many interesting photographs of athletic teams, trophies, club posters, portraits of famous graduates, and the like, which seem part and parcel of collegiate atmosphere.  Warren was profoundly interested, yet there was an abstraction in his conversation which was not unobserved by his entertainer.  As they passed a tall, colonial clock in the broad hallway, Shirley caught him glancing uneasily at it.  This was the second time he had looked at its silvered face since they came into the range of it.  Purposely the club man took him down the length of the big dining-hall, to exhibit the trophies of the hunt, from jungles and polar regions, contributed by the sportsmen members of past classes.  Here Shirley chatted about this and that boar’s head, yonder elephant hide, the other tiger skin, until he had consumed additional time.  As they passed into the lounging room Shirley led his guest past another small mahogany clock.  Again the sharp, anxious glance at the progress of the minutes.  He was convinced by now that some deviltry was being perfected on schedule time.  He began to worry over his little assistant on the floor high above:  perhaps he would not be able to cope with the plotters, after all.  Yet, Chen was wiry, cunning, and needed no diagrams as to the purpose for which he was to guard the rooms.

At last Shirley led Warren to the grill-room where they ordered their dinner:  the supreme test of a gentleman is his taste in the menu for a discriminating guest.  Warren sensed this, as the delicious viands and rare old wines were brought out in a combination which would have warmed the heart cockles of the fussiest old gourmon from Goutville!

“Ah, a feast fit for the gods,” were his admiring words, as the two men smiled across this strange board of hospitality.  In the midst of the meal, their chat of student days was interrupted by a page who approached Shirley.

“Begging your pardon, sir, but I have a note which was left here by messenger for a gentleman named Mr. R. Warren; your guest, I believe, sir?”

Warren’s face flushed, and his surprise was indubitable.  He snatched the envelope from the boy, who had reached it toward Shirley.  The criminologist was no less in the dark.  Warren, with a scant apology, tore open the missive.  It was typewritten!  He read it, and his brows came together with an angry scowl.

He arose from his seat swiftly, turning toward Shirley with a nervous twitching of the erstwhile firm lips.

“Would you pardon me if I ran?  A Wall Street client of mine has suddenly been stricken with apoplexy.  We have deals together, dependent upon gentlemen’s agreements, without a word of writing.  It may mean a fortune to get to him before he loses all power of speech.  It is a shame to spoil, at this time, such a wonderful dinner as I had promised myself with you.  Can you forgive me?”