"Yes."
To those three monosyllables David added nothing during the few minutes' walk. Had Jim been leading him to the prisoner's dock David could not have taken less joy in the journey. Jim discoursed of the judge before whom the prisoner was being led.
"Odd fish, this Radbourne. Dinky little man. With whiskers. You're apt to think he's a fool at first. But that's a mistake. He isn't at all—I'd hate to lose his account. He makes machines in a small way, but very well and quite profitably. His father made a reputation for turning out high-class work and the son keeps it up. We got to know him at St. Mark's. Mrs. Jim says he's the only man of real charity she knows—not even excepting me."
David forgot to smile.
They were shown into a small bare office, where, behind a littered flat-top desk, the judge got nimbly to his feet; although "judge" was in this case a queer fancy indeed, as David had later to confess.
There are several ways in which men can be homely, and Radbourne, of Radbourne & Company, had chosen the worst way of all. When you saw him you wanted to smile. He was little and roly-poly. His eyes were too small, their blue too light. His nose was acutely and ungracefully pug. His ears were too big and stood out from his head. His mouth was too wide. His hair and eyebrows were thick and red, too red, and his round chubby face was flanked by a pair of silky, luxuriant red Dundrearies that would have done credit to a day of hirsute achievements. His linen was strictly without blemish, and he wore a creaseless black frock coat and a waistcoat of brown broadcloth. And as he stood looking up at his tall visitors, head on one side, he reminded them of nothing so much as a sleek cock-robin who had just dined to his taste. He seemed to be in his late thirties.
David would have smiled at any other time. "Why, this," he thought unkindly, "is a mere comic valentine."
The comic valentine smiled, a little shyly it seemed, and put out a slender long-fingered hand.
"This," he announced, "is a great pleasure."
David took the hand and murmured something polite.