It was after the opening of the stock-market and most of the early orders had been executed. The rush had given place to the calm efficiency of a well-organized broker's office. Mr. Robison walked into the Customers' Room, approached Gilbert Witherspoon, a valued customer, touched his hat-brim with two fingers in the French military fashion, and said:
“Please, where's Mr. Richards?” His nasal twang and his Parisian appearance produced the usual impression of striking incongruity upon all men within hearing distance. Everybody frankly listened.
“That's his private office,” answered Witherspoon, non-committally, pointing his finger at a door.
“Thank you very much!” said Robison and bowed. Then he knocked, heard a peremptory “Come in!” and disappeared within.
Witherspoon, who cultivated a reputation as a wit—there is a buffoon in every stock-broker's office—shrugged his shoulders Frenchily, and, in a nasal voice obviously in imitation of Robison, said:
“Another world-beater!”
“You never can tell,” retorted Dan McCormack, oracularly. He was fat, always played “mysteries” in the market—traded in those stocks the movements in which were unaccounted for—and he did not like Witherspoon.
Inside Mr. Robison had said “Bon jour!” and bowed so very low that Mr. Richards immediately thought of the language of a fashionable bill of fare.
“Wie geht's?” retorted Richards, jocularly. Then, nicely serious, “How are you this morning?”
“Don't I look it?” said Mr. Robison. “I am, of course, perplexed.”