“Matter!” The cabman looked towards the sky to see if the heavens were falling. “Matter!” in a higher key, as a crowd began to gather. “I tykes him from Leaden’all Street to Victoria. ’E gives me a bob, an’ ’e arsks me wot’s the matter. I’d been on the ranks four bloomin’ hours—”
“Oh, there you are!” and Bruce threw him half-a-crown before he disappeared up the steps.
Mr. White was watching for Bruce’s arrival. He wondered why the barrister was so perturbed, and resolved to strike while the iron was hot. So he, too, vanished into the interior.
CHAPTER XIII
A QUESTION OF PRINCIPLE
“If any one calls, I am out,” cried Claude to his factotum, as he crossed the entrance-hall of his well-appointed flat, and flung open the door of his library.
“The guv’nor’s in a tantrum,” observed Smith to his wife, and he settled himself to renew the perusal of Grand National training reports. He had just noticed the interesting fact that last year’s winner had “jumped in for the last mile” in a gallop given to a rank outsider, when the electric bell upset his calculations.