Mr Hancock elected to wait outside, and he waited.
It was an unfortunate shop for a man to wait before: there was nothing in the windows but lingerie; the shop on the left of it was a bonnet shop, and the establishment on the right was a bar.
So he had to wait, standing on the kerbstone, in full view of mankind. In two minutes three men passed who knew him, and in the middle of the fourth minute old Sir Henry Tempest, one of his best clients, who was driving by in a hansom, stopped, got out and button-holed him.
"Just the man I want to see, what a piece of luck! I was going to your office. See here, that d——d scamp of a Sawyer has sent me in a bill for sixteen pounds—sixteen pounds for those repairs I spoke to you about. Why! I'd have got 'em done for six if he had left them to me. But jump into the cab, and come and have luncheon, and we can talk things over."
"I can't," said Mr Hancock, "I am waiting for a lady—my sister, she has just gone into that shop. I'll tell you, I will see you, any time you like, to-morrow."
"Well, I suppose that must do. But sixteen pounds!—people seem to think I am made of money. I tell you what, Hancock, the great art in getting through life is to make yourself out a poor man—go about in an old coat and hat; you are just as comfortable, and you are not pestered by every beggar and beast that wants money."
"Decidedly, decidedly—I think you are right," said his listener, standing now on one foot, now on the other.
"Once you get the reputation of being rich you are ruined—what's the matter with you?"
"Twinges of gout, twinges of gout. I can't get rid of it."
"Gout? Have you been to a doctor for it?"