Henry Harper was so shy that when the hour came for him to set forth to 12B, Pall Mall, his one desire was to take the advice of Miss Dobbs and not pay his visit at all. But Mr. Rudge was adamant. Henry must go to Pall Mall if only for the sake of the firm. Just as the young man was about to set out, his master emphasized the immense importance of the matter by appearing on the scene, clothes brush in hand, in order to give a final touch to his toilet. No discredit must be done to 249, Charing Cross Road. An unprecedented honor had been conferred upon it.
The reception of Mr. Harper in Pall Mall was of a kind to impress a sensitive young man of high aspiration and very limited opportunity. To begin with, Pall Mall is Pall Mall, and No. 12B in every chaste external was entirely worthy of its local habitation. After a much bemedaled commissionaire of incredibly distinguished aspect had ushered the young man into the front office, he was received by a grave and reverend signior in a frock coat whom Mr. Harper instinctively felt was the editor himself. Such, however, was not the case. The grave and reverend one was a trusted member of the staff, whose duty it was to usher contributors into the Presence, and in the meantime, if delay arose, to arrange for their well-being.
Before Mr. Harper could be received, he spent some terrible minutes in a tiny waiting-room, in which he felt he was being asphyxiated. During that time it was borne in upon him that he would not be equal to the ordeal ahead. Every minute he grew more nervous. He could never face it, he was sure. Far better to have taken the advice of the wise Miss Dobbs, and have been content with the Covent Garden.
Before the fateful moment came he was in a state of despair. Why he should have been was impossible to say. What was Pall Mall in comparison with the forecastle or the futtock shrouds of the Margaret Carey? What were the commissionaire and the frock-coated gentleman in comparison with Mr. Thompson and the Old Man? Yet he came within an ace of flying out of that waiting-room into the street.
The cicerone reappeared, led the young man up a flight of stairs, opened a door, and announced, "Mr. Harper."
Seated at a writing table in a bay of the large, airy, well-appointed room, was a gravely genial man, whose face had that subtle look of power which springs from the play of mind.
He rose at once and offered a welcome of such unstudied cordiality that Henry Harper forgot that he had ever been afraid of him. The editor of Brown's Magazine placed a chair for the young man and asked him to sit down. He then returned to his writing table, leaned back in his own chair, and half turned to face his visitor.
"Your story interested me enormously." The editor studied very closely the young man opposite without appearing to do so; and then he said, in a slightly changed tone, as if a theory previously formed had been confirmed, "I am sure you have had experience of the sea."
The Sailor knew already that he was going to like Mr. Ambrose immensely. In a subtle way he was reminded of Klondyke, and more remotely of Mr. Horrobin, but yet he felt that Mr. Ambrose was not really like them at all.
As for Edward Ambrose, he had at once fixed in his mind a picture of great simplicity, of eager intensity, of an earnestness pathetic and naïf. Strange to say, it was almost exactly the one he had been able to envisage beforehand. If ever a human document had ascended to the first floor of 12B, Pall Mall, it was here before his eyes.