“Leave that to me, I’ll see to it,” said Mr. Fitzjohn, getting up. “I’m going now. I’ll call for you at a quarter-past seven to-morrow.”
Peregrine smiled jauntily. “I shall be ready. Don’t oversleep!”
“Never fear!” said Mr. Fitzjohn.
He let himself out of Peregrine’s bedroom and descended the stairs to the hall. Here he rather unfortunately met Miss Taverner, who was dressed for the street, and had just come out of the breakfast-parlour.
She looked a little surprised to see him so early in the morning, and glanced laughingly at the clock. “How do you do? Forgive me, but I did not think you were ever abroad until midday! As for Perry, he is a sad case: did you find him in his bed?”
“No, no, he is up,” Mr. Fitzjohn assured her. “I had a little business with him; nothing of importance, you know, but I thought I might call.”
Miss Taverner, who was holding a very pretty buhl snuffbox in her left hand, flicked it open, and took a pinch with an elegant turn of her wrist. “I think it must have been important to bring you out before noon,” she said.
Mr. Fitzjohn, watching her manoeuvers with the snuff-box in a good deal of astonishment, said: “Oh no, just a trifling question of a horse he had a mind to purchase. But Miss Taverner—don’t be offended—in the general way I don’t like to see a lady take snuff, but upon my word, you do it with such an air! It passes everything!”
Miss Taverner, who had spent a week in practising the art, was more than satisfied with the effect it had produced on her first audience.
Mrs. Scattergood appearing at that moment at the head of the stairs, Mr. Fitzjohn took his leave, and went out of the house into the street. He paused for a moment on the steps, considering which surgeon he should engage, shook his head at a couple of chairmen who were signalling their readiness to carry him anywhere he pleased, and after staring abstractedly at a shabbily dressed lad who was lounging against the railings of an adjacent house, set off in the direction of Great Ormond Street.