He hurried to the bedroom.
"Dear," he enquired, "tell me quick: how do you pronounce B-o-u-double s-i-n-g-a-u-l-t?"
Muriel did not lift the covers that concealed her face.
"Go away," she said.
"I am going, only, dearie——"
"Go away—please!"
Jim re-entered the sitting-room. Was it Bou-sing-go? He had his doubts about that French in. If he remembered rightly, it was a kind of an, and the n ended somewhere in the nose. And who was M. Boussingault, anyhow?
"M. le docteur Boo-sàn-go," announced the servant.
"Wait. How was that?" asked Jim, and then found himself face to face with his visitor.
His visitor was a stocky man, of not more than five feet five or six inches in height, inclined to pugginess. He had a leathery complexion, and the point of his thin Van Dyck beard was in a straight line from the sharper point in which his close-clipped bristling hair ended above his nose. It was black hair, and it retreated precipitately on both sides. He looked at Jim through eyeglasses bearing a gold chain and bound together by a straight bar, which gave the effect of a continuous scowl to his heavy brows. He bowed deeply.