‘I admire your courage and resignation,’ said Trevor, ‘so now let us go and take rooms for the Society.’
They found rooms, lordly rooms, which Trevor furnished in a stately manner, hanging a selection of his mezzotints on the walls—ladies of old years, after Romney, Reynolds, Hoppner, and the rest. A sober opulence and comfort characterised the chambers; a well-selected set of books in a Sheraton bookcase was intended to beguile the tedium of waiting clients. The typewriter (Miss Blossom accepted the situation) occupied an inner chamber, opening out of that which was to be sacred to consultations.
The firm traded under the title of Messrs. Gray and Graham. Their advertisement—in all the newspapers—addressed itself ‘To Parents, Guardians, Children and others.’ It set forth the sorrows and anxieties which beset families in the matter of undesirable matrimonial engagements and entanglements. The advertisers proposed, by a new method, to restore domestic peace and confidence. ‘No private inquiries will, in any case, be made into the past of the parties concerned. The highest references will in every instance be given and demanded. Intending clients must in the first instance apply by letter to Messrs. Gray and Graham. No charge will be made for a first interview, which can only be granted after satisfactory references have been exchanged by letter.’
‘If that does not inspire confidence,’ said Merton, ‘I don’t know what will.’
‘Nothing short of it will do,’ said Logan.
‘But the mezzotints will carry weight,’ said Trevor, ‘and a few good cloisonnés and enamelled snuff-boxes and bronzes will do no harm.’
So he sent in some weedings of his famous collection.
III. ADVENTURE OF THE FIRST CLIENTS
Merton was reading the newspaper in the office, expecting a client. Miss Blossom was typewriting in the inner chamber; the door between was open. The office boy knocked at Merton’s outer door, and the sound of that boy’s strangled chuckling was distinctly audible to his employer. There is something irritating in the foolish merriment of a youthful menial. No conduct could be more likely than that of the office boy to irritate the first client, arriving on business of which it were hard to exaggerate the delicate and anxious nature.
These reflections flitted through Merton’s mind as he exclaimed ‘Come in,’ with a tone of admonishing austerity.