"Why! why, because I am in Bede Greatorex's office and we've had a policeman amongst us this morning, looking us up. They say the cheque was brought here by a tall fellow with black whiskers. As that description applies to me, and to none of the others, I thought I'd come and let you see me. That's all. Good morning."
Dashing out in the same commotion that he had entered, Roland, still neglecting his dinner, went skimming back to the house of Greatorex and Greatorex. Not to enter the office, but to pay a visit to Mrs. Bede's side of it.
Not very long before this hour, Mr. Bede Greatorex, all the cares of his business on his shoulders, not the least of them (taking it in all its relations) being the new one connected with the abstracted cheque went upstairs for luncheon and a few minutes' relaxation. He found his wife full of her cares. Mrs. Bede Greatorex had cards out for that afternoon, bidding the great world to a Kettle-drum and she was calculating what quantity of ices and strawberries to order in, with sundry other momentous questions.
The rooms were turned upside-down. A vast crowd was expected, and small articles of impeding furniture, holding fragile ornaments, were being put out of the way, lest they should come to grief in the turmoil.
"Yes, that quantity of ice will be sufficient; and be sure take care that you have an abundance of strawberries," concluded Mrs. Bede Greatorex to the attendant, who had been receiving her orders. "Chocolate? Of course. Where's the use of asking senseless questions? Bede," she added, seeing her husband standing there, "I know how you detest the smell of chocolate, saying it makes you as sick as a dog, and brings on headaches; but I cannot dispense with it in my rooms. Other people give it, and so must I."
"Give what you like," he said wearily "What is it you are going to hold? A ball?"
"A ball in the afternoon! Well done, Bede! It's a drum."
"The house is never free from disturbance, Louisa," he rejoined, as a man pushed by with a table.
"You should let me live away from it. And then you'd not smell the chocolate. And the doors would not be impeded forever with carriages, as you grumble they are. With a house in Hyde Park----"
"Hush!" said Bede in a whisper: "What did I tell you the other day?--That our expenses are so large, I could not live elsewhere if I would: Don't wear me out with this everlasting theme, Louisa."