The stranger was not exacting, and the concession was made.
“Your name, sir?” asked the tenant intending to go out.
“Swinton,” answered the tenant who designed coming in. “Richard Swinton. Here is my card, Mr McTavish; and my reference is Lord —.”
The bank clerk took the card into his trembling fingers. His wife, on the other side of the door, had a sensation in her ear resembling an electric shock.
A tenant with a lord—a celebrated lord—for his referee!
She could scarce restrain herself from shouting through the keyhole:
“Close with him, Mac!”
But Mac needed not the admonition. He had already made up his mind to the letting.
“How soon do you wish to come in?” he asked of the applicant.
“As soon as possible,” was the answer. “To-morrow, if convenient to you.”