He considered the habits of his friend, and remembered that he commonly lunched at the Woolpack. To the Woolpack went the Confidential Clerk a little after two, and found that friend making a book with Natty Timpson, Joe Buller, and the rest upon the approaching but most uncertain Derby. He joined them, drew him aside, briefly told him his business, and asked him how he should proceed.
His friend, who was a true friend and a little drunk, conveyed to him, in language which would certainly be tedious here and probably offensive, the extreme pleasure his principals would find in Mr. Clutterbuck's determination: the probability that the Confidential Clerk himself would not go unrewarded. He spoke of his own high hopes; then, as he contemplated the opportunity in all its greatness, it so worked upon his own enthusiasm as to make him insist upon accompanying the reluctant Clerk to the office itself, and introducing him in a flushed but articulate manner to Mr. Hatton's private secretary.
The two were closeted together for something less than an hour; it was not four o'clock when they parted. Mr. Hatton's secretary, forgetting all social distinctions, shook hands warmly at the door with the Confidential Clerk, who passed out heedless of his friend's eager pantomime in the outer office. And thus it was that by the morning of the next day, while poor Mr. Clutterbuck's temperature was hovering round 104° (Fahrenheit), no small portion of his goods were already earmarked for the Great Crusade to Redeem the Negro Race.
Mr. Clutterbuck's illness reached its crisis and passed; but for many days he was not allowed to hear the least news, still less to occupy himself with business. The Confidential Clerk was far too careful of his master's interests to jeopardise them by too early a call upon his energies. He wrote a daily report to Mrs. Clutterbuck to the effect that nothing had been done beyond the written instructions left by her husband, that all was well, and the office in perfect order. He was at the pains of dictating a daily synopsis of the correspondence he had opened and answered; and though the offer of marriage which since his new stroke of fortune he had made to Miss Pugh for the second time had for the second time been rejected, he continued to utilise her services, both on his own account and on that of his absent principal.
He dictated considerable reports upon the movements of his favourite stocks to greet Mr. Clutterbuck's eye upon his recovery, and in a hundred ways gave evidence of his discretion and his zeal now that he could look forward to his master's early return.
Meanwhile Barnett and Sons, after assuring themselves by certain general questions that Mr. Clutterbuck had said nothing with regard to any Italian investment, held the parcel over till it could be dealt with in person, and were satisfied of the tenacity of purpose of their client.
In the first week of May Mr. Clutterbuck, his crescent of a moustache untrimmed, his hair quite grey, but the broad fan of it still clinging to his large, bald forehead, was permitted for the first time after so many days to see the papers and hear news of the world.
He was languid and utterly indifferent, as convalescents are, to what had hitherto been his chief interests, but as a matter of wifely duty Mrs. Clutterbuck felt herself bound to read him at full length the City article in the Times, and as she did so on the third day her philanthropic and evangelising eye was caught, in the midst of names that had no meaning for her, by the one name Manatasara. It was the feature of the moment that the new company had been successfully launched.
A strong Imperialist, like most women of the governing classes and of the Established Faith, whether in this country or in Scotland, she naturally rejoiced to observe securely forged yet another bond with the Britains Overseas. She could comprehend little of the technicalities of promotion, but she was aware that another of these achievements, of which the Chartered Company of South Africa had for so many years been the brilliant type, was upon the eve of its success, and she rejoiced with a joy in which the love of country stood side by side with a pure and sincere attachment to her religion.
As one day of convalescence succeeded to another, this item of news began to grow so insistent that the wan invalid could not but take some heed of it. Although the long list of shares and prices recited like a litany had carried with it, when it had approached him through his wife's lips, something more than tedium, yet when he was permitted to read and select in it for himself and with his own eyes, the prominence given to Manatasara's interwove with his reviving interest in life the story of Charles Hatton's creation.