CHAPTER XI.
Mr.Sam Gwent stood in what was known as the "floral hall" of the Plaza Hotel, so called because it was built in colonnades which opened into various vistas of flowers and clambering vines growing with all the luxuriance common to California.

He had just arrived, and while divesting himself of a light dust overcoat interrogated the official at the enquiry office.
"So he doesn't live here after all,"-- he said--"Then where's he to be found ?" "Mr.Seaton has taken the hill hut"-- replied the book-keeper--"'The hut of the dying' it is sometimes called.

He prefers it to the hotel.

The air is better for his lungs." "Air?
Lungs ?"--Gwent sniffed contemptuously.

"There's very little the matter with his lungs if he's the man _I_ know! Where's this hut of the dying?
Can I get there straight ?" The bookkeeper touched a bell, and Manella appeared.