"You really ought to go to bed, Lord Blackborough," he said. "All this is so exhausting to the nerves. I shall do so, when I have sent off my telegrams."
Was it the roll of the double r which made Ned inclined to kick Mr. Hirsch? It was a relief when Ted Cruttenden ended the conversation by entering in the silent, unobtrusive way, which people adopt in the house of mourning.
"Messages ready?" he asked.
"Mine are! Mr. Hirsch has some. I suppose you wanted to be off, It's a shocking bad road to Haverton," remarked Ned, full of ill-humour as he left the room.
"I shall not go to Haverton though," said Ted. "I shall save time by cycling to Wellhampton. Five miles further, but there's an all-night office, and it seems a pity to waste time till eight o'clock."
"Good," nodded Mr. Hirsch, "though----" here he gave one of his short explosive laughs--"I am in no particular hurry. I must give Jenkin time--good Lord, what a relief to get rid of Jenkin--ahem!" He pulled himself up hurriedly and went on writing.
It was the first time Ted had come to close quarters with a millionaire, a millionaire too of European reputation as a financier more than as mere money seeker, and the effect was stimulating. It roused his admiration, his imagination. He stood at the window, waiting and watching Mr. Hirsch's head--it was growing, in truth, a trifle bald at the crown--as it bent over his papers and thinking what it must feel like to possess the art of transmuting baser things to gold.
"I will give you a sovereign," began the great man condescendingly. "One is in cipher, and that costs. The change in stamps, if you please. I have many letters to write."
Typical of the man, thought Ted Cruttenden, while Mr. Hirsch, noticing how careful the young man was in discriminating between his and Lord Blackborough's telegrams, but putting them into different pockets, smiled. "You are metodical, I see," he remarked, with just that faint slur over the th which occasionally told he was not English. "It is a great gift in business."
Ted smiled also, and flushed with pleasure, since Mr. Hirsch's praise was worth having; and so, then and there, almost as if some chemical affinity had manifested itself between the molecules composing his brain and Mr. Hirsch's, he made up his mind to try and follow his example. He was no fool; other people succeeded, why not he?