The physician hurried away, and a few minutes later Morse also excused himself, on the pretext of a heavy mail. Jacob and his young companion made luxurious use of their wonderful bathrooms, subsequently attiring themselves in the garments laid out by a ubiquitous and efficient valet, after which Felixstowe set up his typewriter and insisted upon justifying his existence. Jacob accordingly dictated a few lines to Dauncey, which his anxious secretary took down with great care. Felixstowe smudged his fingers badly with the carbon copy and, after Jacob had appended his signature, stamped and addressed the missive with punctilious attention.
“There is no doubt whatever,” he declared, as he gave the letter over to the care of a specially summoned servant and threw himself into the most comfortable of the easy-chairs, “that a certain amount of work does give spice to the day’s pleasure.”
“You’ll have to do a great deal more than that,” Jacob warned him, “when the busy days come along.”
“And why not?” was the grandiloquent reply. “When I get going, I shall be able to do a great deal more without fatigue. Six o’clock, old dear,” he added, glancing at his watch, “and mark you, something tells me that before long that genial blackamoor, with the smile which seems to slit his face in two, will be here with cocktails. Footsteps outside! Why, I can hear the ice chinking in the shaker!”
The door opened—to admit only Morse, however. Felixstowe’s face fell. The newcomer was attired in dinner clothes, which accorded fairly well with the tenets of eastern civilisation except that his jacket was unusually long and his black tie of the flowing description.
“Mr. Pratt has an excellent chef here,” he announced, “but I thought that as you two gentlemen are strangers in New York, you would probably like to sample one of the best restaurants. I have ordered dinner at the Waldorf. It is not so exclusive as some of the other places, but I feel sure that you will find it amusing.”
“Is the bird’s-nesting good there?” Felixstowe enquired anxiously.
“Bird’s-nesting? I don’t quite get you,” Morse replied, politely puzzled.
“The fluff,” his questioner explained, “the skirts,—the little ladies who help to make the world a cheerful and a joyous place.”
Mr. Morse proved that behind his severe expression and depressing spectacles he was only human. He smiled.