A very stout man, barefooted, who had struggled into a pair of abnormally tight riding-breeches, faced them.
"Can it be possible ?" he exclaimed, striking an attitude.
Dom Corria spoke not a word.

He knew the value of effect, and could bide his time.

The three passed into a lighted apartment.

De Sylva placed himself under a chandelier, and took off a frayed straw hat which he had borrowed from someone on board the _Unser Fritz_.

The colonel, a grotesque figure in his present _deshabille_, bowed low before him.
"My President!--I salute you," he murmured.
"Thank you, General," said Dom Corria, smiling graciously.