If you happen to have an account at an old banking establishment, to have entrusted your affairs to the management of an old-fashioned solicitor, or to be acquainted with a broker who is one of a firm known in the City for years, you may call upon each and all of them, season after season, without fearing to encounter that villainous smell of paint which meet those who do business with new people at every turn, on every landing.
As for Salisbury House, painters, white-washers, paper-hangers, and varnishers pervaded it with a perpetual presence.
A man given to punning once suggested the reason for this was—the dreadful cases taken in there—but Mr. Asherill, to whom the remark was made, would not see the intended joke, and observed it might be well for some people, who did not possess a saving faith, if men were able to perform a similar cleansing operation on their souls.
On the occasion of Mrs. Mortomley's first visit to Salisbury House, Mr. Swanland's own office was undergoing a course of purification, and he was therefore compelled to receive her in the room where a week previously Messrs. Kleinwort and Werner had been admitted to an audience with the senior partner.
In acknowledgment of his own comparatively subordinate standing in the firm, Mr. Swanland's papers were ranged upon a table covered with green baize, drawn close beside the window, while Mr. Asherill maintained his position at the ponderous mass of mahogany and morocco leather which occupied the centre of the room.
When Mrs. Mortomley entered, Mr. Asherill rose, and, with a profound bow and studied courtesy of manner, handed her a chair.
Mr. Swanland availed himself of this opportunity of feebly indicating his senior as "my partner;" then, while Mr. Benning who was present advanced to shake hands, Mr. Asherill resumed his seat and his occupation with an air which said plainly to all who cared to understand,
"Now don't interrupt me or trouble me about your trumpery business. Here am I with the whole future of mercantile London on my shoulders, and it is absurd to expect me to give the smallest attention to this ridiculously poor affair."