"I like this oak table very much," said Miss Leslie to Philip, in a high and trembling voice. "I wonder if there are chairs to match it."
But before any business could be transacted the irrepressible octogenarian was off again.
"Dearest Pamela," he said affectionately to Miss Leslie, "how well I remember the day that we two bought our wedding furniture together! We made a handsome couple, you and I. You wore a crinoline, with a black bombazine tippet; and I was in nankeen overalls and a fob. I was a mad wag in those days: I remember I offered to fight the shopman to decide the price of a harpsichord—or was it a spinet?—that I considered he asked too much for. But times have changed. I suppose you never fight your customers now to save chaffering, young man? If you do, all honour to you! I like to see ancient customs kept up." He surveyed the flinching vendor of dining-room suites with puckered eyes. "I am an old fellow now, and I fear I would hardly give you full measure. But if you have any inclination for a bout with the mufflers,"—a relentless hand descended upon the fermenting Philip and drew him forward,—"my son-in-law here, honest John—"
But the manager, murmuring something inarticulate about a telephone-call, turned tail and fled, his place being taken by a man of more enduring fibre.
And so on.
They got home about six, having purchased an imitation walnut wardrobe which they did not want.
"We simply had to buy something after all that," said honest John.
A week later the flat was sufficiently furnished to be habitable, and the new tenants moved in.
It was about this time that Philip began to realise the portent and significance of a mysterious female figure, resembling an elderly and intensely respectable spectre, which had been dogging his footsteps and standing meekly aside for him upon staircases ever since he entered into possession. With the arrival of the furniture the apparition materialised into a diminutive and sprightly dame in a black bonnet, who introduced herself as Mrs. Grice, and asked that she and her husband might be employed as the personal attendants of Philip and Tim. The pair resided in some subterranean retreat in the basement, and their services, it appeared, were at the disposal of such of the tenants of the building as possessed no domestic staff of their own. Mrs. Grice could cook, darn, scrub, and dust; while Mr. Grice (whose impeccability might be gauged from the fact that he suffered slightly from gout and possessed a dress-suit) could wait at table and act as valet to the gentlemen.