"Ventimore, to be sure!" he put his hand in his pocket and produced a card: "Yes, it's all quite correct: I see I have the name here. And an architect, Mr. Ventimore, so I—I am given to understand, of immense ability."
"I'm afraid I can't claim to be that," said Horace, "but I may call myself fairly competent."
"Competent? Why, of course you're competent. Do you suppose, sir, that I, a practical business man, should come to any one who was not competent?" he said, with exactly the air of a man trying to convince himself—against his own judgment—that he was acting with the utmost prudence.
"Am I to understand that some one has been good enough to recommend me to you?" inquired Horace.
"Certainly not, sir, certainly not. I need no recommendation but my own judgment. I—ah—have a tolerable acquaintance with all that is going on in the art world, and I have come to the conclusion, Mr.—eh—ah—Ventimore, I repeat, the deliberate and unassisted conclusion, that you are the one man living who can do what I want."
"Delighted to hear it," said Horace, genuinely gratified. "When did you see any of my designs?"
"Never mind, sir. I don't decide without very good grounds. It doesn't take me long to make up my mind, and when my mind is made up, I act, sir, I act. And, to come to the point, I have a small commission—unworthy, I am quite aware, of your—ah—distinguished talent—which I should like to put in your hands."
"Is he going to ask me to attend a sale for him?" thought Horace. "I'm hanged if I do."
"I'm rather busy at present," he said dubiously, "as you may see. I'm not sure whether——"
"I'll put the matter in a nutshell, sir—in a nutshell. My name is Wackerbath, Samuel Wackerbath—tolerably well known, if I may say so, in City circles." Horace, of course, concealed the fact that his visitor's name and fame were unfamiliar to him. "I've lately bought a few acres on the Hampshire border, near the house I'm living in just now; and I've been thinking—as I was saying to a friend only just now, as we were crossing Westminster Bridge—I've been thinking of building myself a little place there, just a humble, unpretentious home, where I could run down for the weekend and entertain a friend or two in a quiet way, and perhaps live some part of the year. Hitherto I've rented places as I wanted 'em—old family seats and ancestral mansions and so forth: very nice in their way, but I want to feel under a roof of my own. I want to surround myself with the simple comforts, the—ah—unassuming elegance of an English country home. And you're the man—I feel more convinced of it with every word you say—you're the man to do the job in style—ah—to execute the work as it should be done."