“Have it your own way,” he said.
Sergeant Elk, lounging in to report progress that afternoon, was greeted by a new title. For a while he was dazed, and then a slow smile dawned on his homely face.
“I’ll bet I’m the only inspector in England who doesn’t know where Queen Elizabeth is buried!” he said, not without pride.
CHAPTER VIII
THE OFFENSIVE RAY
IT was perfectly absurd, Dick told himself a dozen times during the days which followed, that a grown man of his experience should punctiliously and solemnly strike from the calendar, one by one, the days which separated him from Sunday. A schoolboy might so behave, but it would have to be a very callow schoolboy. And a schoolboy might sit at his desk and dream away the time that might have been devoted to official correspondence.
A pretty face . . . ? Dick had admired many. A graciousness of carriage, an inspiring refinement of manner . . . ? He gave up the attempt to analyse the attraction which Ella Bennett held. All that he knew was, that he was waiting impatiently for Sunday.
When Dick opened the garden gate, he saw the plump figure of philosophical Johnson ensconced cosily in a garden chair. The secretary rose with a beaming smile and held out his hand. Dick liked the man. He stood for that patient class which, struggling under the stifling handicap of its own mediocrity, has its superlative virtue in loyalty and unremitting application to the task it finds at hand.
“Ray told me you were coming, Mr. Gordon—he is with Miss Bennett in the orchard, and from a casual view of him just now, he is hearing a few home truths. What do you make of it?”
“Has he given up coming to the office?” asked Dick, as he stripped his dust-coat.