He looked at his watch; it showed three minutes to twelve o’clock. He waited another minute, and then crossed through the traffic and entered the sober and forbidding portals of the bank. He had never before been inside a City bank, and the animated scene, to which many glass partitions gave an air of mystery, would have bewildered him had he not long since formed the immutable habit of never allowing himself to be bewildered. Ignoring all the bustle which centred round the various cash desks lettered A to F, G to M, and so on, he turned unhesitatingly to an official who stood behind a little solitary counter.
‘Sir?’ said the official blandly; it was his sole duty to be bland (and firm) to customers and possible customers of an inquiring turn of mind.
‘I have an appointment with Mr. Simon Lock,’ said the young man.
The official intensified his blandness at the mention of the august name of the chairman of the British and Scottish Banking Company, Limited.
‘Mr. Lock is engaged with the Board,’ he said.
‘I have an appointment with the Board,’ said the young man. ‘My card;’ and he produced the pasteboard of civilization.
The official read:
Mr. Richard Redgrave, M.A.,
Specialist.
‘In that case,’ said the official, now a miracle of blandness, ‘be good enough to step this way.’ Mr. Richard Redgrave stepped that way, and presently found himself in front of a mahogany door, on which was painted the legend, ‘Directors’ Parlour’—not ‘Board Room,’ but ‘Directors’ Parlour.’ The British and Scottish was not an ancient corporation with a century or two of traditions; it was merely a joint-stock company some thirty years of age. But it had prospered exceedingly, and the directors, especially Mr. Simon Lock, liked to seem quaint and old-fashioned in trifles. Such harmless affectations helped to impress customers and to increase business. The official knocked, and entered the parlour with as much solemnity as though he had been entering a mosque or the tomb of Napoleon. Fifty millions of deposits were manoeuvred from day to day in that parlour, and the careers of eight hundred clerks depended on words spoken therein. Then Mr. Richard Redgrave was invited to enter. His foot sank into the deep pile of a Persian carpet. The official closed the door. The specialist was alone with three of the directors of the British and Scottish Bank.