Mr. Chater nerved himself to declare his mind. “There wasn't very much to question him about,” he said.
His words—outcome of views forcibly expressed by his partners in Mincing Lane that morning—were the foolhardy action of one who pokes a tigress with a stick.
The tigress shook herself. “Now, I wonder what you mean by that?” she challenged.
Mr. Chater dropped the stick; precipitantly fled. “Of course it was all new to Bob,” he granted, throwing a bone.
Very much to his alarm the tigress ignored the bone; rushed after him. “All you seem to think about,” cried she, “is making the boy slave. He's never had a proper holiday since he left school, and yet the very first time he goes off to see the world you must be fidgeting yourself to death all the time that he's not pushing the firm sufficiently; and immediately he comes back you must start cross-examining just as if he was an office-boy—not a word about his health or his pleasure. Oh, no! of course not!”
Squirming in misery, Mr. Chater remarked that he had his partners to consider. “I'm only too glad that Bob should enjoy himself—only too glad. But you must remember, my dear, that part of his expenses for this trip was paid for by the firm—the firm. He was to call on foreign houses—”
The tigress opened her mouth for fresh assault. Mr. Chater hurriedly thrust in a bone. “I don't say he hasn't done a great deal for us—not at all; I'd be the last to say that. What I say is that in duty to my partners I must take the first opportunity to ask him a few questions about it. Bob sees that himself; don't you, Bob?”
“Oh, do let's keep shop off the table,” Bob snarled. “Fair sickens me this never getting away from the office.”
“There you are!” Mrs. Chater cried. “There you are! Always business, business, business—that's what I complain of.”
With astounding recklessness Mr. Chater mildly said: “My dear, you started it.”