‘And, by the way,’ added the high official, ‘although the business is unofficial, it might be well if you wore your official overcoat. See?’
‘Decidedly,’ said Hazell; ‘I should have done so in any case.’
‘And now, Mr Hazell,’ said Racksole, ‘will you do me the pleasure of lunching with me? If you agree, I should like to lunch at the place you usually frequent.’
So it came to pass that Theodore Racksole and George Hazell, outdoor clerk in the Customs, lunched together at ‘Thomas’s Chop-House’, in the city of London, upon mutton-chops and coffee. The millionaire soon discovered that he had got hold of a keen-witted man and a person of much insight.
‘Tell me,’ said Hazell, when they had reached the cigarette stage, ‘are the magazine writers anything like correct?’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Racksole, mystified.
‘Well, you’re a millionaire—“one of the best”, I believe. One often sees articles on and interviews with millionaires, which describe their private railroad cars, their steam yachts on the Hudson, their marble stables, and so on, and so on. Do you happen to have those things?’
‘I have a private car on the New York Central, and I have a two thousand ton schooner-yacht—though it isn’t on the Hudson. It happens just now to be on East River. And I am bound to admit that the stables of my uptown place are fitted with marble.’ Racksole laughed.
‘Ah!’ said Hazell. ‘Now I can believe that I am lunching with a millionaire.
It’s strange how facts like those—unimportant in themselves—appeal to the imagination. You seem to me a real millionaire now. You’ve given me some personal information; I’ll give you some in return. I earn three hundred a year, and perhaps sixty pounds a year extra for overtime. I live by myself in two rooms in Muscovy Court. I’ve as much money as I need, and I always do exactly what I like outside office. As regards the office, I do as little work as I can, on principle—it’s a fight between us and the Commissioners who shall get the best. They try to do us down, and we try to do them down—it’s pretty even on the whole. All’s fair in war, you know, and there ain’t no ten commandments in a Government office.’