Amongst the recent chronicles of St. Vedast's Wharf was a legend that on one occasion an entire stranger to the Company and the manager, finding the outer office unoccupied, penetrated to the inner sanctum and there surprised Mr. Forde industriously reading the 'Times.'
Whereupon the manager rose and said, "How dare you sir, come in here? I must request you to leave my office immediately."
But the stranger stood his ground. "Don't excite yourself, pray. I have come to speak to you about a little matter of business, and I can wait until you are cool. I am going to take a seat, and if you follow my advice you will do the same."
And suiting his action to the word, the madman, as Mr. Forde afterwards called him, pulled forward a chair, sat down and calmly eyed the manager until that gentleman asked, "What the——he wanted?"
Mr. Forde's present visitor was, however, a man of a different stamp.
"Take my card to Mr. Forde," he said, "and ask him to name an hour this afternoon when he will be at leisure."
Now the name engraved on the card was that of a City magnate, and Mr. Forde at once with many apologies came out to greet him.
In the revulsion of his feelings he would have shaken hands, but the visitor failed to perceive his intention; neither did he make any answer to Mr. Forde's inquiries as to what he could do for him until they stood together in the private office with the door shut.
With great effusion of manner, Mr. Forde pressed one of the highly-polished, hair-stuffed, morocco-covered chairs upon the magnate's attention, and the magnate seated himself upon it, put his hat and gloves on the table, placed his gold-headed cane between his knees, and then after deliberately drawing out a pocket-book remarked,
"I have come to speak to you about a rather unpleasant piece of business, Mr. Forde."