Mr. Charles Proctor Dawn was a little fat man of fifty-something. He had prying triangular eyes of a very light color, a short fleshy nose, and a fleshier mouth whose greediness was only partly hidden between a ragged gray mustache and a ragged gray Vandyke beard. His clothes were dark and unclean looking without actually being dirty.

He didn’t get up from his desk, and throughout my visit he kept his right hand on the edge of a desk drawer that was some six inches open.

He said:

“Ah, my dear sir, I am extremely gratified to find that you had the good judgment to recognize the value of my counsel.”

His voice was even more oratorical than it had been over the wire.

I didn’t say anything.