The Lonely Unicorn: A Novel

by Alec Waugh

But Roland had reminded him that he was very busy, and that he did not know if he would have time, but that he would certainly try to arrange a lunch at their next visit.

"And in the meantime I will see that you get that varnish."

"Ah! that varnish," said M. Rocheville. And observing that he was now standing alone in the porch, with no one to whom he might address his profound reflections upon the mortality of man, he walked slowly towards the gate, a little puzzled by Roland's conduct and by his own.

"A delightful young man," he said, then paused as though he must qualify this estimate, but his Latin cynicism saved him. "Well, well," he said, "an agreeable interlude."

That was Roland's first triumph, and the other, if less adroitly stage-managed, was more audacious, and owed its success to skill as much as to good fortune.

Haupsehr & Frohmann directed one of the largest polish factories in the south of Germany; they supplied, indeed, practically the whole of the Rhineland with their goods, and Roland had considered that a meeting between them might prove profitable. He found, however, that it was impossible to obtain an interview with either Herr Haupsehr or Herr Frohmann. "They will not look at English goods." That was what everyone told him, and a carefully worded request for an interview that he addressed to the head of the firm was answered by return of post with a bald statement that Herren Haupsehr and Frohmann did not consider a personal interview would further the interests of either Mr Roland Whately, representative of Marston & Marston, or of themselves. And Roland was thus driven to the reluctant conclusion that his advisers were correct. If he were to effect an introduction it would have to be done by guile.

He awaited his opportunity, and the opportunity came to him in the passport office. He had gone to fulfil some trifling by-law concerning the registration of aliens. For a long time he had sat in a draughty corridor, and then for a long time he had stood beside a desk while a busy bureaucrat attended to someone else's business, and when at last he had succeeded in making his application a bell rang in the next room, and without an apology his interlocutor rose from his chair and hurried to the next room.

"How terrified they are of their chiefs," Roland thought. He had by now become accustomed to the trepidation of officials. How typical was that desk of the words that were written and the sentences framed at it; precise, firm, tabulated and impersonal: the plain brass inkstand, with red and black inkpots; the two pens, the blotter, the calendar, the letter files, the box for memoranda; and the mind of that fussy little official was exactly like his desk, and, leaning over, Roland tried to see to whom the letter on the blotter was addressed.

As he did so, his eye fell on a slip of pasteboard that had been put behind the inkstand. It was a calling card, the calling card of a Herr Brumenhein, and on the top, in handwriting, was inscribed the words: "To introduce bearer." The name Brumenhein was familiar to Roland, though in what connection he could not recall. At any rate, the fact that he recollected the name at all proved that it was the appendage of an important person, and as it was always useful to possess the means of being introduced under the auspices of a celebrity, Roland picked up the card and placed it in his pocket-book.

When he returned to the hotel he made inquiries about the unknown patron, and learned that Herr Brumenhein was a very distinguished Prussian minister, and one who was honoured by the confidence of the Crown Prince. "He will be a great man one day," said the hotel proprietor.