The colour of his face had changed as swiftly as that of the electric advertisement opposite my bedroom at King's Cross. He had gone as white as chalk. I had known perfectly well that he wasn't going to sell anything to Samson Evitt, but was merely playing his own hand with the firm; but he'd had no business at all with Mr Masters' waste-paper basket, and knew it. It had been rather horrible, but I had known I was as good as reinstated already.
"I'm coming back, Polwhele," I had said.
He had not spoken—only looked at me with eyes full of terror.
"You're going to see that I come back, Polwhele," I had informed him.
"My God, Jeffries, you wouldn't have the heart."
"Oh no—not as long as I come back."
Then swiftly he had seen his years of shifts and meannesses all wasted unless....
"Oh my God! How can I do it?" he had groaned.
"I don't know, Polwhele."
I did not know, nor do I know now how he did it. Men do impossible things when they've got to. That had been on a Friday evening, at a quarter to seven (the zeal of a new junior clerk always kept him after the others had gone). I had given him Monday in which to see to it. On the Tuesday morning, at nine o'clock, I had been back at my envelope addressing again. These things have to be done sometimes. And I need hardly add that now Polwhele would have turned up at my funeral with a smile on his lips and a nosegay in his buttonhole.