“At once, if you please,” I answered.
She rose from her seat behind the roll-topped desk and she walked to the door.
“Then will you step into the waiting-room?” she asked.
I obeyed. The waiting-room had a mirror and a pair of brushes. When I thought of the families whose portraits I had seen within—I refrained.
“I shall do,” said I, “as I am.”
After a few moments’ delay there was a knock on the door. I opened it. There again was the little lady waiting for me.
“Will you step up to the studio, please?” she said, and I received the impression from her voice of anxious assistants waiting in rows to receive me, ready to take my features and record them upon a photographic plate for the benefit of posterity.
Up into the studio, then, I went; a gaunt, great place with white-blinded windows that stared up to the dull, grey sky. But it was empty. I looked in vain for the assistants—there were none. And when she began to wheel the camera into place I stood amazed.
“Are you the whole business of Robinson and Co.?” I asked.
She smiled encouragingly.