Indeed with his quick ways, his shortness, his bushy little grey whiskers and his pepper and salt suit with its flapping pockets, Mr. Simcox was very like one of those funny little jack-in-the-boxes they used to sell. He said to her, regarding her with very apparent pleasure and esteem, “Well, that’s very nice of you. That really is very nice of you. And it’s most wonderful. It is indeed. Do you know, I must have walked more than a mile looking for a letter-box and I daresay I should have walked another mile and then forgotten it and taken the letter home again.” He addressed Aunt Belle: “It’s a most astonishing thing, Mrs. Pyke Pounce, but I cannot post a letter. I positively cannot post a single letter. When I say single, I do not mean I can post no letter at all. No, no. Far from it. I mean I can post no letter singly, by itself, solus. My daily correspondence, my office batch, I take out in a bundle, perhaps in a table basket. That is simple. But a single letter—as you see, a clever young lady like this has to find a box for me or I might carry the thing for days together. Astonishing that, you know. Astonishing, annoying, and mind you, sometimes serious and embarrassing.”
“Why, you busy, busy person, you!” cried Aunt Belle with her customary air towards a man of shaking her finger at him. “You very busy person! Fancy a basket full of correspondence! Why what a heap you must have!”
Mr. Simcox said he had indeed a heap. “Sometimes I think more than I can manage.”
“Indeed,” agreed Aunt Belle, “you don’t seem to have much time to spare. Why, I haven’t seen you in my drawing-room for quite a month (“You busy little creature, you,” expressed without being stated). I expect you’re getting very rich and disagreeable.” (“You rich little rascal, you!”)
Mr. Simcox declared that as to that his business wasn’t one to get rich at. “In no sense. Oh, no, in no sense. It keeps me occupied. It gives me an interest. That’s all. No more than that.” As to Mrs. Pyke Pounce’s delightful drawing-room, most certainly he had been there less than a month ago and most certainly he would present himself again on the very next opportunity. To-morrow, was it? He would without fail present himself there tomorrow, “and I hope,” said Mr. Simcox, taking his leave, “I hope I may have the pleasure of seeing my postmistress there again.” He smiled very cordially at Rosalie and went flapping away up the street at the pace and with the air, not of one who had come out to post a letter and had posted it, but of one who had come out to post a letter, had dropped it, and was flying back to look for it.
“Oh, isn’t he an ugly little monster!” cried Aunt Belle, resuming the walk.
“But I think he’s nice,” said Rosalie. “What is his business, Aunt Belle?”
Aunt Belle hadn’t an idea. “He’s an agent,” said Aunt Belle, “but an agent for what I’m sure I don’t know. He’s a very mysterious, fussy, funny little person. We knew him in Bombay where he had a very good position, but he retired and what he does now I’m sure I can’t say. But he’s very busy. You heard him say how busy he is. Rosalie, he might know of something for you. We’ll ask him, dear child. The funny, ugly little monster! We’ll ask him. He might help.”
He did help. A very short while afterwards, Rosalie received the appointment of Private Secretary to Mr. Simcox; twenty-five shillings a week; one pound five shillings a week! Office hours ten to five! Saturdays ten to one! Holiday a fortnight a year! A man’s work! A man’s weekly salary! A man’s office hours! The ecstasy of it! The ecstasy!
The matter with Mr. Simcox was that, in India a man of affairs, in England he found himself a man of no affairs and a man who had “lost touch.” On a leave from the Bombay house of the indigo firm he had been prevailed upon by his mother and his maiden sister to remain at home and look after them and he had done it and gone on doing it, and they had died and he had never married, and he had now no relatives, and by this and by that (as he told Rosalie early in her installation) he had dropped out of friendships and, as he expressed it “lost touch.” He owned and occupied one of those enormous houses in Bayswater. It had been his mother’s and he lived on in it after her death and the death of his sister, alone with a housekeeper. The housekeeper resided in the vast catacombs of the basement of the enormous house; Mr. Simcox resided in the immense reception rooms, miles above, of the first floor; the three suites above him, scowling gloomily across a square at the twin mausoleums opposite, were unoccupied and un-visited; on the first floor Mr. Simcox had his office. The business done in this office, which Rosalie was now to assist, and why it was done, was in this wise and was thus explained to Rosalie.