"No, sir," said the waiter compassionately. "But there is a cold plunge-bath," he suggested.
"No good, I'm afraid; but thanks all the same," said the polite Timothy. "Get a taxi."
CHAPTER XIX
PLAIN MEN AND FAIR WOMEN
A fortnight later Philip filled the vacancy which had been caused two years previously by the removal of Mr. Atherton by offering the post to Tim Rendle—an offer which was accepted by that ornament of the leisured classes with an enthusiasm which would have surprised the horny-handed Brand.
The experiment turned out a complete success. It provided Master Timothy with some much-needed employment, the Britannia Motor Company with an admirable addition to its staff, and Philip with a companion. Tim was a capital salesman. He soon became a brilliant, if slightly reckless driver; and in time he absorbed a fair working knowledge of the mechanics of the automobile. He possessed a charm of manner of which he was quite unconscious, and a unique capacity for getting himself liked. He fell in and out of love on the slightest provocation, and rarely failed to keep Philip informed of his latest entanglement.
Once he offered, as a supreme favour, to introduce Philip to one "Baby," who presided over a small tobacconist's establishment in Wardour Street. The interview was an entire failure. The siren greeted Timothy and his abashed companion most graciously, and was on the point, doubtless, of making some witty and appropriate remarks, when a piano-organ came heavily to anchor just outside the door, and its unwashed custodians proceeded to drown all attempts at conversation with the reverberating strains of "Alexander's Rag-Time Band." Under such circumstances it was impossible to look either affectionate or rakish. A conversation conducted entirely by means of smiles, however affable, and nods, however knowing, rarely leads anywhere; and, Timothy having intimated by a tender glance in the direction of Baby and a despairing gesture towards the door, that his heart was forever hers, but that for the present they must part, the deputation filed ignominiously out, one half of it feeling uncommonly foolish.
Tim was fond of engaging in controversy with Brand, and Philip frequently overheard such epithets as "gilded popinjay," and "grinder of the faces of the poor," exchanged for "dear old soul," and "esteemed citizen," on the occasions when argument and chaff clashed together in the garage or show-room.
Tim created an impression in another quarter, too, as a brief scrap of conversation will show.