Mr. Pondel made a deprecating gesture.
"We are always glad to serve you, sir!" he repeated, as Wessons escorted the distinguished customer to the door.
"It's a great privilege to be employed by such a man as Mr. Pondel," whispered the salesman. "He thinks an enormous lot of you, sir. Very fine man—Mr. Pondel."
As the hansom jogged rapidly toward the hotel, McAllister reflected painfully upon the enormous sums of money that he annually transferred from his own pockets to those of the lordly tailor. Not that the money made any particular difference. The clubman was well enough fixed, only sometimes the bills were unexpectedly large. The three suits just ordered would average fourteen guineas each. Roughly they would come to two hundred and twenty-five dollars, plus the duty, which he always paid conscientiously. And he was getting off easy at that. He remembered heaps of bills for over two hundred pounds, and that was only the beginning, for he bought most of his clothes right in New York.
Climbing the steps of his hotel, he wondered vaguely how long Pedler and the other fellow would have to work to finish the suits. Of course, they would be paid extra—were probably glad to do it. The chap had a nasty cough, though. Oh, well, that was their business—not his! So long as he put up the money, Pondel could look out for the rest.
However, he felt a distinct sense of relief that his own obligations consisted merely in dressing, dining at the Savoy with Aversly, and then leisurely taking in the Alhambra afterward. Once in his room, he found that the once criminally inclined, but now reformed Wilkins, who had returned to his master's service under a solemn promise of good behavior, had already laid out his clothes. McAllister rather dreaded dressing, for the place was one of those heavily oppressive apartments characteristic of English hotels. Green marble, yellow plush, and black walnut filled the foreground, background, and middle distance, while a marble-topped table, placed squarely in the centre of the room, offered the only oasis in the desert of upholstery, in the form of a single massive book, bound in brown morocco, and bearing the inscription stamped upon its cover in heavy gilt:
HOTEL METROPOLE
HOLY BIBLE
NOT TO BE REMOVED
It fascinated him, recalling the chained hairbrush and comb of the Pacific Coast. There you were offered cleanliness, here godliness, by the proprietors; only the means thereto were not to be taken away. The next comer must have his chance.
As the clubman idly lifted the volume, he suddenly realized that this was the first Bible he had actually touched in over thirty years. The last time he had owned one himself had been at school when he was fifteen years old. Something moved him to carry it to the window. The sun was just dropping over the scarlet chimney-pots of London. Its burnished glare played upon the red gilt edges of the leaves, as McAllister mechanically allowed the book to fall open in his hands. He read these words:
So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter.