As he stood with outstretched hand, there was little enough of the American about him for all his laboured transatlanticisms.
"God! no. Not now. We've got the off-scourings of every nation and most of the saloons of Mexico City working for us. They're a dandy lot, but it's pretty to see O'Rane handling them. If ever you lose your faith in human nature, come and see him licking half-castes and Gringoes into shape. They'd string up old man Diaz and make O'Rane president for the asking. Well, I must be going."
"Look here," I said, as we shook hands again, "you must come and dine with me----"
"Thanks. I don't show up in the West End by day. I spend my mornings down town--Mincing Lane way--and then I retire up stage. 'Sides, I'm due to sail on Friday if I can get fixed by then."
I walked with him to the front door and watched him appreciatively sniffing the early morning air.
"Good old London!" he exclaimed, and then with a return of his former sneering arrogance, "D'you ever see X----?"
The name he mentioned was borne by a well-known Permanent Under-Secretary in one of the Government offices. He was a regular visitor at my uncle's house.
"And his wife?" Morris pursued. "Well, next time you run across her, just tell her that all's well in the New World. Good-bye."
When I had finished my story, Loring threw away the stump of his cigar and stretched himself.
"As I told you earlier in the evening," he observed, "the little man has been born about three centuries too late."
I always regarded Loring as the possessor of one sterling quality. Selfish he might be, or indolent, or inconsiderate, an old maid in his fussy little rules of everyday existence and an incurable romantic in his attitude to the life of the twentieth century. With it all he was a man of his word. Under blackmail he had pledged himself to entertain my French journalists, and when the time came for fulfilling the pledge he smiled welcome on them in the hall of House of Steynes.
Indeed, so admirable was his manner that I retired unreluctantly from competition. Raney's messenger, the self-styled "James Morris," had called on me in June; the evangelists of Universal Brotherhood arrived in July, and for more sweltering weeks than I like to count, mine was the privilege of giving them tea and speeches on the Terrace, escorting them in unsuitable clothes to Goodwood and more speeches and misinforming them on subjects of historical interest in Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's--a course which afforded them opportunity of correcting me in further speeches, to the sluggish perplexity of the vergers.