At home there isn't a dead person in existence, so to speak, that would have a chance in a locality like Cheapside.
And they must suggest to you all sorts of useful and valuable things about the futility of ambition and the deceitfulness of riches down there under your very noses, as it were, whenever you pause to look at them. I can quite understand your respect for them, even in connection with what E.C. frontage prices must be, and I hope, though I can't be sure, that there was one attached to the offices in Cheapside of Messrs. Pink & Pink.
The clerks all looked up with an air of inquiry when I went in, and I selected the only one who did not immediately duck to his work again for my interrogation. It was an awkward interrogation to make, and I made it awkwardly. 'Are the Mr. Pinks in?' I asked; for I did not know in the least how many of them wanted to see me.
'I believe so, miss,' said the elderly clerk, politely, laying down his pen. 'Would it be Mr. A. Pink, or Mr. W. W. Pink?'
I said I really didn't know.
'Ah! In that case it would be Mr. A. Pink. Shouldn't you say so?'—turning to the less mature clerk, who responded loftily, from a great distance, and without looking, 'Probably.' Whereupon the elderly one got down from his stool, and took me himself to the door with 'Mr. A. Pink' on it, knocked, spoke to someone inside, then ushered me into the presence of Mr. A. Pink, and withdrew.
The room, I regret to say, did not match its surroundings, and could not have been thought of in connection with a graveyard. It was quite modern, with a raised leather wall-paper and revolving chairs. I noticed this before I saw the tall, thin, depressed-looking gentleman who had risen, and was bowing to me, at the other end of it. He was as bald as possible, and might have been fifty, with long, grey side-whiskers, that fell upon a suit of black, very much wrinkled where Mr. Pink did not fill it out. His mouth was abruptly turned down at the corners, with lines of extreme reserve about it, and whatever complexion he might have had originally was quite gone, leaving only a modified tone of old-gold behind it. 'Dear me!' I thought, 'there can be nothing interesting or mysterious here.' Mr. Pink first carefully ascertained whether I was Miss Wick, of Chicago; after which he did not shake hands, as I had vaguely expected him to do, being poppa's solicitor, but said, 'Pray be seated, Miss Wick!'—and we both sat down in the revolving chairs, preserving an unbroken gravity.
'You have been in London some weeks, I believe, Miss Wick,' said Mr. A. Pink, tentatively. He did not know quite how long, because for the first month I had plenty of money, without being obliged to apply for it. I smiled, and said 'Yes!' with an inflection of self-congratulation. I was very curious, but saw no necessity for giving more information than was actually asked for.
'Your—ah—father wrote us that you were coming over alone. That must have required great courage on the part of'—here Mr. Pink cleared his throat—'so young a lady;' and Mr. Pink smiled a little narrow, dreary smile.
'Oh, no!' I said, 'it didn't, Mr. Pink.'