I hope he doesn't think I'm a parasite of a girl who clings on to little Million because she's happened to inherit a fortune. Rather angrily I said: "We both want it; because until Miss Million has some more she cannot pay me my salary!"
He looked a little amazed at this, but he did not say anything about his surprise that I was in a salaried capacity to my little friend. He only said: "Well! How much do you—and Miss Million—want? Five pounds again? Five hundred——"
"Oh, not five hundred all at once," gasped the awe-struck Million; "I'd never feel I could go to sleep with it——"
While I cut in abruptly: "Yes, five hundred will do for us to arrange ourselves on."
Thereupon the old lawyer made the suggestion that was to be fraught with such odd consequences.
"Wouldn't it be more convenient," he said, "if an account could be opened in Miss Million's name at a bank?"
"That will do," said Miss Million's maid (myself), while Miss Million gazed round upon the black dispatch-boxes of the office.
Ten minutes later, with a cheque for £500 clutched tightly in Miss Million's hand, also a letter from Mr. Chesterton to Mr. Reginald Brace, the manager, we found ourselves at the bank near Ludgate Circus that Mr. Chesterton had recommended.
Million was once more doddering with nervousness. Once more Miss Million's new maid had to take it all upon herself.
"Mr. Brace," I demanded boldly over the shoulder of an errand-lad who was handing in slips of paper with small red stamps upon them.