"Call that boy back!" he shouted to the watchman, leaping to the door with sudden agility and astonishing interest.
Cleg returned with the same dejected mien and abased eyes. He stood, the image of sorrow and disappointment, upon the cocoa-nut matting.
"Whom did you say you would tell?" said Donald Iverach, in a tone in his voice quite different from his business one.
"Only Miss Tennant—a freend o' mine," said Cleg, with incomparable meekness and deference.
"Miss Tennant of Aurelia Villa?" broke in the eager youth.
"Aye, juist her," said Cleg dispassionately. "She learns us aboot Jacob and Esau—and aboot Noah," he added as if upon consideration. He would have mentioned more of the patriarchs if he could have remembered them at the time. His choice of names did not spring from either preference or favouritism. So he added Noah to show that there was no ill-feeling in the matter.
"And Miss Tennant is your friend?" queried the young man.
Cleg nodded. He might have added that sometimes, as in one great ploy yet to be described, he had been both teacher and friend to Miss Celie Tennant.
"Tell your lassie to be here at breakfast-time to-morrow morning, and to be sure and ask for Mr. Donald Iverach," was all the junior partner remarked.
And Cleg said demurely, "Thank you, sir."