Audacity, Carelessness up, always wins.
Business at 68, Old Bond Street, actually increased.
The stalls began to be constantly occupied by patrons who were waiting to occupy the bench. Among them was Mrs. Drinkabeer Stoat, who, somewhat disconcerted by the reflection that, if necessary, about five thousand people could prove that the cipher upon her drawing-room ceiling had cost but fifty guineas, hastened to request that her hall and dining-room might be surveyed forthwith.
Firms of decorators who had at first been plainly contemptuous changed their coats forthwith and began to remember ‘Cheviot’s’ in their prayers.
The weather becoming hot, the great fireplace was replaced by an oriel out of whose leaded casements was plainly visible a blue and sunlit sky. Its deep window-seat was laden with cushions of powder-blue. The mountainous chair and its henchmen had gone with the fireplace, to be replaced by a fair ‘gate’ table, which the footman laid for lunch and later for tea. From six o’clock the gleaming paraphernalia of cocktails burdened the board. With the approach of evening the window was not illuminated: only the sky beyond became suffused with the glory of some sinking sun. Even the open book, which declared its legend from the floor, was sacrificed to this effect, which attracted much well-deserved attention and was commended by several newspapers.
Early in September the Cheviots raised their fee to a hundred guineas and declined to go into the country to survey less than five rooms, three of which, said their gracious intimation, may be in one house and two in another not more than ten miles distant.
By the end of the month they were making four thousand a week.
The two worked hard, employing five secretaries.
One controlled their movements, arranging each day what visits should be paid on the next, and having two programmes ready each evening at six o’clock. The same man affixed the wafers and kept the accounts. Of the others two were always in attendance upon Mr. and Mrs. Cheviot, taking down their ‘opinions’ in shorthand and transcribing their notes the next day. In addition to their wages, which were high, two per cent. of the takings was handed to them and the footmen every week. Thus was efficiency encouraged, if not assured.
Each evening, but at no other time, the Cheviots repaired to Old Bond Street to confer, sign their ‘opinions,’ peruse the additions to the register, and deal with any business that awaited them.