If you are there will you give me a few minutes? I am waiting in a cab at the next corner by the fountain.
Mellin's hand shook as he read. He did not doubt that she came as an emissary; probably they meant to hound him for payment of the note he had given Sneyd, and at that thought he could have shrieked with hysterical laughter.
“Do you speak English?” he asked.
“Spik little. Yes.”
“Who gave you this card?”
“Coachman,” said the boy. “He wait risposta.”
“Tell him to say that I shall be there in five minutes.”
“Fi' minute. Yes. Good-by.”
Mellin was partly dressed—he had risen half an hour earlier and had been distractedly pacing the floor when the page knocked—and he completed his toilet quickly. He passed down the corridors, descended by the stairway (feeling that to use the elevator would be another abuse of the confidence of the hotel company) and slunk across the lobby with the look and the sensations of a tramp who knows that he will be kicked into the street if anybody catches sight of him.
A closed cab stood near the fountain at the next corner. There was a trunk on the box by the driver, and the roof was piled with bags and rugs. He approached uncertainly.