The German inventor was younger than Bundle had imagined him. He was probably not more than thirty-three or four. He was boorish and ill at ease, and yet his personality was not an unpleasing one. His blue eyes were more shy than furtive, and his more unpleasant mannerisms, such as the one that Bill had described of gnawing his fingernails, arose, she thought, more from nervousness than from any other cause. He was thin and weedy in appearance and looked anaemic and delicate.

He conversed rather awkwardly with Bundle in stilted English and they both welcomed the interruption of the joyous Mr. O’Rourke. Presently Bill bustled in⁠—there is no other word for it. In the same such way does a favoured Newfoundland make his entrance, and at once came over to Bundle. He was looking perplexed and harassed.

“Hullo, Bundle. Heard you’d got here. Been kept with my nose to the grindstone all the blessed afternoon or I’d have seen you before.”