CHAPTER VII — OLD HANDS
Karl Steinmetz lifted his pen from the paper before him and scratched his forehead with his forefinger.
“Now, I wonder,” he said aloud, “how many bushels there are in a ton. Ach! how am I to find out? These English weights and measures, this English money, when there is a metrical system!”
He sat and hardly looked up when the clock struck seven. It was a quiet room this in which he sat, the library of Paul’s London house. The noise of Piccadilly reached his ears as a faint roar, not entirely unpleasant, but sociable and full of life. Accustomed as he was to the great silence of Russia, where sound seems lost in space, the hum of a crowded humanity was a pleasant change to this philosopher, who loved his kind while fully recognizing its little weaknesses.
While he sat there still wondering how many bushels of seed made a ton, Paul Alexis came into the room. The younger man was in evening dress. He looked at the clock rather eagerly.
“Will you dine here?” he asked, and Steinmetz wheeled around in his chair. “I am going out to dinner,” he explained further.
“Ah!” said the elder man.
“I am going to Mrs. Sydney Bamborough’s.”