Ever since leaving home to be a newspaperman, and hocking up with his Texas Ranger, Ethan Morris had traveled far and wide meeting all sorts of people and lawless characters. His life had been a whirlwind of travel, from Paris, to London, to New York and the strange and Wild West. In his travels with Jonathan, the Texas Ranger, Ethan had kept a sketchbook that he'd use to paint the landscape, houses and Indians they came across not to mention the many outlaws. One Sunday in March they had been marooned at the Billiards Club, Ethan the painter, the Texas Ranger, and Avery the illustrator, and, having lunched late, had bored themselves separately to their limits over the periodicals until, preferring to bore each other, they had gravitated together in easy arm-chairs before the big Renaissance fireplace. Ethan, sunk in his collar, from behind the black-rimmed spectacles, which, with their trailing ribbon of black, gave a touch of Continental elegance to his cropped beard and colonel's mustaches, watched without enthusiasm the three mammoth logs, where occasional tiny flames gave forth an illusion of heat. Avery, as gaunt as a militant friar of the Middle Ages, aware of Ethan's protective reverie, spoke in random periods, addressing himself questions and supplying the answers, reserving his epigrams for a larger audience. At three o'clock De Winter entered from a heavy social performance, raising his eyebrows in salute as others raise their hats, and slightly dragging one leg behind. He was an American critic who was busily engaged in discovering the talents of unrecognized geniuses of the European provinces. When reproached with his migratory enthusiasm, he would reply, with that quick, stiffening military click with which he always delivered his "bons mots": "My boy, I never criticize American art. I can't afford to. I have too many charming friends." At four o'clock, which is the hour for the entrée of those who escape from their homes to fling themselves on the sanctuary of the club, Parker, the architect, arrived with Jack, the fashionable painter of fashionable men, who brought with him the atmosphere of pleasant soap and an exclusive, smiling languor. A moment later a voice was heard from the anteroom, saying: