"The affable gent in the Panama hat," said Mr. Harford, "who is here most days and walks through our modest but well-conducted premises as if they were a pig-sty. We don't mind a man despising the treasures of literature; reading is, after all, a matter of taste; but we do bar the way he scowls at us. Even Pat, mild and tolerant as he is, almost squared up to him to-day. My own idea is to exchange this poor little creature here—who shares the besetting sin of all spaniels in being too ready to make indiscriminate friends—for a man-eating mastiff. What's his quarrel with us, anyway? Does he dislike us personally or did a book seller once try to do him in?"
Ben laughed. "Poor Tommy!" she said. "Be a little patient, he's going back to Madeira next week."
"An excellent place for him," said Mr. Harford.
Ben herself found Tommy rather a trial, for he not only looked at her with such hungry hopelessness, but he took up a great deal of valuable time.
His next visit was a veritable ordeal.
"Look here, Ben," he said, "I've been working for you since I was here last and I think you'll agree that I've been rather useful. Of course I hate your being in this business—the very phrase 'Beck and Call' makes me sick, for a girl like you too!—and being mixed up with those two fellows downstairs. By the way, the lame one sings too: something about his 'Bonnie,' confound him! Well, since you're set on sticking to business, and since you won't do what I ask, I want to help you to be more comfortable and more successful. So I've been nosing about and I've found you some really good premises in a central part, far removed from this back-alley and those musical shopkeepers downstairs."
"What ever do you mean?" Ben demanded, her colour rising dangerously.
"Just what I have said," Tommy replied. "I have found you some really good premises. In Dover Street. Close to the big hotels, close to Piccadilly, and approached from the street direct by a staircase. Very important, that."
"My dear boy, no doubt you meant it very well," said Ben, with some temper, "but I can't have my affairs interfered with like this. I have a lease here, for one thing; for another, it has become well known. For another, I don't want to move. Dover Street, no doubt, is a good position; but I can't afford Dover Street. This is cheap and central enough. I hope you haven't committed yourself at all."
"I've got an option," said Tommy.