"Mr. Jarvis," he began, "there is a matter—a little matter—upon which I—er—wish to consult you."
"Those American invoices—"
"Nothing to do with business at all," Mr. Weatherley interrupted, ruthlessly. "A little private matter."
"Indeed, sir?" Mr. Jarvis interjected.
"The fact is," Mr. Weatherley blundered on, with considerable awkwardness, for he hated the whole affair, "my wife—Mrs. Weatherley, you know—is giving a party this evening—having some friends to dinner first, and then some other people coming to bridge. We are a man short for dinner. Mrs. Weatherley told me to get some one at the club—telephoned down here just an hour ago."
Mr. Weatherley paused. Mr. Jarvis did his best to grasp the situation, but failed. All that he could do was to maintain his attitude of intelligent interest.
"I don't know any one at the club," continued his employer, irritably. "I feel like a fish out of water there, and that's the truth, Mr. Jarvis. It's a good club. I got elected there—well, never mind how—but it's one thing to be a member of a club, and quite another to get to know the men there. You understand that, Mr. Jarvis."
Mr. Jarvis, however, did not understand it. He could conceive of no spot in the city of London, or its immediate neighborhood, where Mr. Samuel Weatherley, head of the firm of Messrs. Weatherley & Co., could find himself among his social superiors. He knew the capital of the firm, and its status. He was ignorant of the other things which counted—as ignorant as his master had been until he had paid a business visit a few years ago, in search of certain edibles, to an island in the Mediterranean Sea. He was to have returned in triumph to Tooley Street and launched upon the provision-buying world a new cheese of astounding quality and infinitesimal price—instead of which he brought home a wife.
"Anything I can do, sir," began Mr. Jarvis, a little vaguely,—
"My idea was," Mr. Weatherley proceeded, "that one of my own young men—there are twelve of them in there, aren't there?" he added, jerking his head in the direction of the office—"might do. What do you think?"