"Governor," said Hal earnestly, "what's the use of bluffin' a fellow like me? I ask you, are you the sort to buy a tin-pot little paper, to go in for house property and then evict your paying tenants? Governor, you're spending money an' that's a very significant thing."
Sir Harry looked at his watch.
"I've five minutes to catch my train," he said pointedly, "is the brougham at the door?"
The brougham was at the door. Its two champing pawing steeds champed and pawed as per specification—as a business man Sir Harry insisted upon written specifications dealing minutely with details of his purchases, even of his carriage horses.
"Another time," said Sir Harry drawing on his gloves, "I shall be happy to discuss this matter. But not now."
He reached his office in Austin Friars and found a note awaiting him. A note daringly spelt and slovenly written.
An hour later he hailed a cab and drove rapidly westward.
In Guilford Street is an imposing house bearing on the fanlight over the front door the astonishing legend, "Apartments," and at this house Sir Harry descended. His knock brought a little Swiss boy in an ill-fitting dress suit.
"Mr. Smith?" inquired Sir Harry and the boy nodded and ushered him upstairs.
The atmosphere of the room into which Sir Harry was shown was, to put it mildly, dense.