“It’s jolly stopping like this,” he cried; “one can chat a bit without having to shout.”
My curiosity about the lease, or rather about his part in it, prevented an immediate reply. How he could possibly help in such a complicated matter puzzled me exceedingly.
“Horrible things, leases!” I said at length. “Confusing, I mean, with their endless repetitions and absence of commas. Legal language seems so needlessly——”
“Oh, but this one is right enough,” he interrupted. “You see, my pal hasn’t signed it yet. He’s in rather a muddle about it, to tell the truth, and I’m going to get it straightened out by my solicitor.”
The bus started on with a lurch, and he rolled against me.
“It’s a three-year lease,” he roared, “with an option to renew, you know—oh no, I’m wrong there, by the bye,” and he tapped my knee and dropped a glove, and, when it was picked up and handed to him, tried to stuff it up his sleeve as though it was a handkerchief—“I’m wrong there—that’s the house he’s in at present, and his wife wants to break that lease because she doesn’t like it, and they’ve got more children than they expected (these words whispered), and there’s no bathroom, and the kitchen stairs are absurdly narrow——”
“But the lease—you were just saying——?”
“Quite so; I was,” and both eyebrows dropped so that the eyes were almost completely hidden, “but that lease is all right. It’s the other one I was talking about just then——”
“The house he’s in now, you mean, or——?” My head already swam. The attention of the people opposite had begun to wander.
My friend pulled himself together and clutched several parcels.