"This is an excellent guide, sir," said the clerk. "He speaks twenty-five languages."

The stout man, who--as Mr Greyne now perceived--had on a Swiss suit of clothes, a panama hat, and a pair of German elastic-sided boots, confessed in pigeon English, interspersed occasionally with a word or two of something which Mr. Greyne took to be Chinese, that such was undoubtedly the case.

"What do you wish to see? The mosque, the bazaars, St. Eugene, La Trappe, Mustapha, the baths of the Etat-Major, the Jardin d'Essai, the Villa-Anti-Juif, the----"

"One moment!" said Mr. Greyne.

He turned to the clerk.

"May I take a chair?"

"Be seated, sir, pray be seated, and confer with Alphonso."

So saying, he gave himself to an enormous ledger, while Mr. Greyne took a chair opposite to Alphonso, who stood in a Moorish att.i.tude looking apparently in the direction of Ma.r.s.eilles.

"I have come here," said Mr. Greyne, lowering his voice, "with a purpose.".

"You wish to see the Belle Fatma. I will arrange it. She receives every evening in her house in the Rue ------"

"One minute! One minute! You said the something 'Fatma'?"

"The Belle Fatma, the most beautiful woman of Africa. She receives every----"

"Pardon me! One moment! Is this lady----"

Mr. Greyne paused.

"Sir?" said Alphonso, settling his Spanish neck-tie, and gazing steadily towards Ma.r.s.eilles.

"Is this lady--well, sinful?"

Alphonso threw up his hands with a wild Asiatic gesture.

"Sinful! La Belle Fatma! She is a lady of the utmost respectability known to all the town. You go to her house at eight, you take coffee upon the red sofas, you talk with La Belle, you see the dances and hear the music. Do not fear, sir; it is good, it is respectable as England, your country----"

"If it is respectable I don't want to see it," interposed Mr. Greyne.

"It would be a waste of time."

The clerk lifted his head from the ledger, and Alphonso, by means of standing with his back almost square to Mr. Greyne, and looking over his right shoulder, succeeded at length in fixing his eye upon him.

"I have not travelled here to see respectable things," continued Mr.

Greyne, with a slight blush. "Quite the contrary."

"Sir?"

The voice of Alphonso seemed to have changed, to have taken on a hard, almost a menacing tone. Mr. Greyne thought of his beloved wife, of Merrin's exercise-books, and clenched his hands, endeavouring to feel, and to go on, like a militiaman.

"Quite the contrary," he repeated firmly; "my object in coming to Africa is to--to search about in the Kasbah, and the disrep----"

He choked, recovered himself, and continued: "Disreputable quarters of Algiers--hem------"

"What for, sir?"

The voice of Alphonso was certainly changed.

"What for?" said Mr. Greyne, growing purple. "For frailty."

"Sir?"

"For frailty--for wickedness."

A slight cackle emanated from the ledger, but immediately died away. A dead silence reigned in the office, broken only by the distant sound of the sea, and by the hard breathing of Alphonso, who had suddenly begun to pant.

"I wish to go to all the wicked places--_all!_"

The ledger cackled again more audibly. Mr. Greyne felt a p.r.i.c.kling sensation run over him, but the thought of "Catherine" nerved him to his awful task.

"It is my wife's express desire that I should do so," he added desperately, quite forgetting Mrs. Greyne's injunction to keep her dark in his desire to stand well with Rook's.

The ledger went off into a hyena imitation, and Alphonso, turning still more away from Mr. Greyne, so as to get the eye fuller upon him, exclaimed, in a mixture of Aryan and Eurasian languages:

"Sir, I am a respectable, unmarried man. I was born in Buenos Ayres, educated in Smyrna, came of age in Constantinople, and have practised as guide in Bagdad and other particular cities. I refuse to have anything to do with you and your wife."

So saying, he bounced into the inner room, and banged the door, while the ledger gave itself up to peals of merriment, and Mr. Greyne tottered forth upon the sea-front, bathed in a cold perspiration, and feeling more guilty than a murderer.

It was a staggering blow. He leaned over the stone parapet of the low wall, and let the soft breezes from the bay flit through his hair, and thought of Mrs. Greyne spurned by Alphonso. What was he to do? Kicked out of Rook's, to whom could he apply? There must be wickedness in Algiers, but where? He saw none, though night was falling and stout Frenchmen were already intent upon their absinthe.

"Does monsieur wish to see the Kasbah to-night?"

Was it a voice from heaven? He turned, and saw standing beside him a tall, thin, audacious-looking young man, with coal-black moustaches, magnificent eyes, and an air that was half-languid, half-serpentine.

"Who are you?"

"I am a guide, monsieur. Here are my certificates."

He produced from the inner pocket of his coat a large bundle of dirty papers.

"If monsieur will deign to look them over."

But Mr. Greyne waved them away. What did he care for Certificates?

Here was a guide to African frailty. That was sufficient. He was in a desperate mood, and uttered desperate words.

"Look here," he said rapidly, "are you wicked?"

"Very wicked, monsieur."

"Good!"

"Wicked, monsieur."