Pim. Oh, yes, I was——
George (coughing). H'r'm! Perhaps I'd better mention that you are a friend of the Trevors?
Pim. Thank you, thank you. (To Olivia.) Indeed yes, I spent several months in Sydney a few years ago.
Olivia. How curious! I wonder if we have any friends in common there.
George (coughing and gruffly). Extremely unlikely, I should think. Sydney is a very big place.
Pim. True, true, but the world is a very small place, Mr. Marden. I had a remarkable instance of that, coming over on the boat this last time.
George. Ah! (Feeling that the conversation is now safe, he resumes his letter.)
Pim. Yes. There was a man I used to employ in Sydney some years ago, a bad fellow, I'm afraid, Mrs. Marden, who had been in prison for some kind of fraudulent company-promoting and had taken to drink and–and so on.
Olivia. Yes, yes, I understand.
Pim. Drinking himself to death, I should have said. I gave him at the most another year to live. Yet to my amazement the first person I saw as I stepped on board the boat that brought me to England last week was this fellow. There was no mistaking him. I spoke to him, in fact; we recognized each other.