"You didn't, hey? Why not?"
"'Cos it was too 'ighbrow for me," said Bowers simply. "So help me, governor, that's true. It was the Daily Telegraph. Now, you just give me something like the News of the World on Sundays, and then I'm all right. I like something with a bit of spice in it. I mean, actresses and peers taking gas and playing the giddy goat and all that; see what I mean? Mind, I glanced at the paper, but that's not the same thing as actually reading it: now is it?"
His air of petulant persuasiveness, like that of a man ready for instant flight, seemed to convince H.M. H.M. grew drowsy again.
"About Hogenauer, son. Pretty well off, wasn't he?"
"Ah! He was that," agreed Bowers, sinking his voice confidentially. "Mind you, not that he was the one to chuck it about. He never played whoopee or anything like that. I've often thought to myself," somewhere at the back of the pinched face appeared to lurk a happy smile, "cor, suppose I should come home one night and find the old governor sitting at 'is desk with a bottle of fizz on the table and a little bit of fluff sitting on 'is knee!" Bowers added: "But he never did."
"How do you know he was well off?"
"'Cos I've seen his pass-book," answered the other complacently. "Now, sir, no call to go and lecture me! If you see something, you look at it. 'Uman nature-that's what I always say."
H.M., the corners of his mouth turned down, drew the £100note out of his pocket, spread it out, and held it up.
"I wasn't goin' to lecture you, son. I was goin' to ask: did you ever see this before?"
Bowers whistled.