No one had overheard the conversation except a porter in gorgeous uniform, and he saw nothing extraordinary in it. He was used to eccentrics of all kinds, to millionaires in tatters and to frauds and to plain fools; they passed before him in an unceasing stream.
The moonlike youth returned.
“Do you wish to open an account?” he said.
“Open?” said Mr. Petre.
“Do you wish this check,” said the selenian patiently, “to be put to your credit? Do you wish to draw against it ... when it has been cleared?”
“Credit” was clear enough. “Draw” was ambiguous. “Cleared” was quite meaningless.
“I want it to go in here,” said Mr. Petre simply.
His friend (or opponent) on the other side of the counter sighed and once more disappeared. He was not absent so long this time, and when he returned there was clearly apparent, in spite of his immense reserve, something of awe in his manner, and a great deal of new courtesy.
“Mr. Petre,” he said, in a respectful, very low voice, “the manager would like to see you.”
A wild dread pierced like a lance through Mr. Petre’s inmost soul. He had an impulse to dash through the doors—but he was no longer young, and he feared pursuit; so he said “Yes,” in a voice which he prevented from trembling by an assumption of boldness, and just at that moment a very charming, quietly dressed, ironical, smiling man in the thirties, spare, and with a high voice, came up welcoming him and saying: