“What about the Aschers?” he said.
He handed the list to me. There was a pencil mark opposite the name of Mr. Carl Ascher. Immediately below it was “Mrs. Ascher and maid.”
“I don’t know him,” I said. “Who is he? Has he done anything particular?”
“Heavens above!” said Gorman. “Who is Ascher! But perhaps you don’t recognise him apart from the rest of the firm. Ever heard of Ascher, Stutz & Co.?”
I recognised the name then. Ascher is a banker, one of those international financiers who manage, chiefly from London offices, a complicated kind of business which no ordinary man understands anything about, a kind of foreign business which for some reason very few Englishmen undertake.
“If the man’s a millionaire,” I said, “he won’t care to dine with us—and he’s probably a Jew—not that I’ve any particular prejudice against Jews.”
“He’s not a Jew,” said Gorman. “He’s an Englishman. At least he’s as English as any man with a name like that can be. I expect he’ll jump at the chance of feeding with us. We’re the only people on board the least likely to interest him.”
I admire Gorman’s splendid self-confidence, but I do not share it. I shrank from seeking the friendship of a millionaire.
“He has his wife with him,” I said. “Perhaps she——”
I meant to suggest that Mrs. Ascher might not care to be thrown with a couple of stray men of whom she knew nothing. Gorman thought I meant something quite different.