The omnibus stopped at Piccadilly Circus; they alighted. Lemuel had to ask the way to Jermyn Street; Oldstein knew it, and was soon in his office eagerly attacking a pile of letters. Five minutes later his one clerk--a magnificent creature whose greatest asset was a capacity for being stylish on very little--brought in Buskin's name.
"He must wait," said the master gruffly, "while I dictate letters. Hurry!"
He solemnly put the pile of mission notices on the desk before him, and closely attended to his correspondence.
Lemuel was waiting with the pitiful patience of a deserted lamb. His little heart was excitedly fluttering. He felt strangely fearful. He was not used to business. He would have given sixpence to have seen himself in a looking-glass, to be sure his hair was tidy, his tie straight. He eyed the dingy furniture of the stuffy room, and felt his courage going. He had expected to see more adornment than this; but he had read that the truly wealthy make the least display.
He fixed his gaze steadily on the door through which the clerk had gone, regarding it with mingled dread and longing. "Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch' entrate" might well have been written above it.
Twenty minutes passed--Father Time, to spite his impatience, grossly enlarged every one of the twelve hundred seconds--before the splendid clerk reopened the door, ostentatiously closed an untidy shorthand book, and said: "Will ye go in?"
Lemuel Buskin rose trembling. His knees seemed to have forgotten their strength. But he remembered his mother's counsel, plucked up courage, and repeated mentally the stimulating chorus of a hymn. He was, as he entered the private office and took the offered seat, in such a whirl of confusion that he did not at once recognize the person of the financier.
Suddenly he was aware of Oldstein's identity, and blushed hotly.
"I ca-came to see Mr. Gordon!"
"I am Mithter Gordon!"