"Then what did you do?" Sarah persisted, "I can't imagine you spending your first morning in idleness."
"You might have called it idleness; I didn't," he answered, smiling. "I had my hair cut and my nails manicured; I was measured for four new suits of clothes, a certain number of shirts, and I bought some other indispensable trifles."
"Dear me," Sarah murmured, "you aren't at all the sort of man I thought you were!"
"Why not?"
"You don't seem energetic. I should have thought, even if you weren't supposed to buy or sell, that you would have been all round the markets, enquiring about B. & I.'s this morning."
"I read the papers instead," he replied. "One can learn a good deal from the papers."
"You will find rather a partial Press where B. & I.'s are concerned,"
Kendrick observed.
"I have already noticed it," was the brief reply. "Still, even the Press must live, I suppose."
"Cynic!" Sarah murmured.
"Might one ask, without being impertinent," Maurice White enquired, addressing Wingate for the first time, "what is your real opinion concerning the directors of the B. & I.?"