"Good afternoon, Mr. Leigh," said the landlord in a gracious and pleasant voice. "Very hot walking out of doors."
"Very. Will you have a brandy--a split?"
"It's almost too hot. But I will for the sake of company, as you are kind enough to ask me."
The landlord busied himself getting the drinks, and then set them on the counter. Mr. Leigh took his up, nodded to Williams, saying laconically, "Health," to which the other responded in due form. The hunchback drained his glass at one draught, the landlord sipped his.
"I wanted that badly," said Leigh. "It's good stuff. Anything wrong?" "Well, Mr. Williams, it is my breakfast and dinner--up to this."
"Ah. That's bad. Why didn't you get your breakfast. A man isn't any good unless he eats a hearty breakfast, I say. What's the matter, Mr. Leigh. Anything wrong down in the country?"
"No, no. I feel better already. As you say, that's fine brandy. Give me another. I'm tired. I've had such a morning. I feel better, a good deal better. Isn't it hot?"
"Blazing. So you have had a busy morning?"
"Yes. Oh, very busy morning, Mr. Williams, No breakfast yet, but this," tapping the second glass of brandy and soda. "I must be careful not to knock up my digestion, Mr. Williams. When a man's digestion is upset he isn't fit for figures, for calculations, you know. It takes a man all his time, and the coolest head he can saw off a brass monkey, to make calculations such as I deal in."
"You're a wonderful man, and I always say it." Mr. Williams was a personable, good-looking man, with a large white face and lardy skin. He believed that Mr. Leigh knew a vast number of things, and that he himself had a great reserve of solid wisdom which, for reasons undefined to himself, he kept inactive for his own secret pleasure, as a man might hoard a priceless jewel, gloating over the mere sense of possession. He had a firm conviction that if it were only possible to mould Mr. Leigh's mind and his own into one, the compound might be trusted to perform prodigies, always provided that Mr. Leigh had little or nothing to do with the direction of its activities.