Mr Mckenzie was a man of medium height and colouring. He was of the type which proprietors of restaurants and waiters respect. He had enough nose to look important, enough stomach to look benevolent. His tips were not always in proportion with the benevolence of his stomach, but this mattered less than one might think.

Monsieur Albert asked if Monsieur were alone; and Mr Mackenzie answered, with a smile that he had trained not to be bashful, that he was quite alone that evening. Then he ordered veau Clamart, which Monsieur Albert said was very good, and a carafe of red wine.

Mr Mackenzie was comfortably well off, but no millionaire. Helped by his father, who had owned a line of coastal steamers, and by a certain good luck which had always attended him, he had made his pile fairly early in life. He was not one of those people who regard the making of money as an adventure and cannot stop and do something else. He had made a fair sufficiency and then retired. He was forty-eight years old.