‘You did,’ responded the stranger, gasping also. ‘Rather heavily. It was lucky you had something soft to fall on.’
Philip began to make apologies. The stranger, breathless still, but jovially polite, begged him not to mention it. He was a tallish young man, broad set, and a little too fleshy for his years. He had a cleanshaven face, healthily pallid, the whitest of teeth, and a most frank, engaging, and contagious smile.
‘Pray don’t say anything more about it,’ he said in answer to Philip’s reiterated apologies. ‘You are not hurt, I hope?’
‘No, thanks; but I’m afraid you are.’
‘Not at all. It was sharp for a minute; but I am all right now. The stairs are very inconvenient, especially to strangers.’
‘I haven’t even that excuse for my clumsiness, said Philip; ‘for I am living here.’
‘Indeed; then we are neighbours, and should know each other. Rather an informal kind of introduction, eh?’ The stranger said this with a mellow laugh and a flash of his white teeth. He opened his overcoat as he spoke, and produced a card-case, Philip catching the gleam of a gold-studded shirt-front as he did so. ‘That’s my name, John Barter; and these are my offices.’ The outer oak, cracked and blistered to the likeness of an ancient tar-barrel, bore an inscription, dim with long years—‘Fellowship, Freemantle, and Barter’—and the names were repeated on the doorpost at the entrance.
‘I have no card,’ said Philip, accepting the stranger’s. ‘My name is Bommaney—Philip Bom-maney;’ Mr. Barter’s smiling face was unchanged, though he gave a slight but perceptible start at the name, and repeated it.
‘Do you know it?’ asked Philip. To the ears of his companion there was something of a challenge in the tone. ‘It is not a common name.’
‘No. Not a common name. I think I have heard it somewhere.’