Visions of flesh-coloured tints shot with blood-red perturbed his brain, but he fought against and dismissed them; that combination would be commonplace in Dahomey.

When the first rays of sunlight showed him the reflection of his careworn face in the plate-glass mirrored ceiling, he rose and, with an impulse of despair, flung open the casements.

There before his blood-shot eyes lay the pure, still, new-born, radiant June morning.

With a cry of inspiration the great man leaned out of the casement and rapidly caught the details of his new conception.

Before ten o'clock he was again at his bureau in Paris.