"But who is there to praise me?" he muttered.
Leaning back in his chair, for a moment or two, he gave himself up to the luxury of the true smoker's idleness.
But had there not been something that he had meant to do, in any interval of rest, like this, which might occur during the morning?
The morocco bound memorandum tablet, which he produced from his waistcoat pocket, answered the question—
"Write to Betty."
"Send message to Lancaster."
It was too late to send any message to Lancaster now. A couple of hours was not sufficient notice to give him of an invitation to lunch. He was not intimate enough with Lancaster to treat him in so offhand a manner. It would be an abuse of his new position, a tactical mistake. The lunch must be arranged for tomorrow. Crossing off his original note, he scribbled another—
Lancaster to lunch tomorrow. See him, personally, this afternoon, or this evening.
But he could write to Betty!
Clearing a space on the writing table, by pushing to one side the less urgent documents and papers, which he had retained for subsequent attention, he picked up his fountain pen; then, when he had found, after some search, a sheet of note paper sufficiently plain and unostentatious, to suit his taste, he began to write—