"Yes, you're down on your luck, aren't you?"
"You are always thinking something, Maud."
The thread of talk was broken, and they wandered into the office with nothing to say. It was built of iron sheets, held together with wooden beams. Frequent ledgers and other dreary volumes took their rest upon the tables, and files of ageing papers dangled by strings along the walls. The dust of spent willy-willys had found the upper shelves, and many an industrious fly had left a lifetime's labour on ceiling and woodwork. The corpulent cockroach walked here after the heat of the day, and the spider spread his net in the loftier corners. For at Surprise a happy line is drawn between the must-be and the need-not, and the word "broom" is not used among the best people.
The place was full of a sickly heat, but the day was Saturday, and King only had stayed behind. They found him writing at the lower end. Half-way down Neville had secured his victim between a table and a chair. The person in this unhappy case was an elderly man of a very broken appearance. He might have been a gentleman a long time ago. His hair was grey, but a moustache of any colour you please drooped over his mouth. His eyes were pale blue, with a blink, and his chin grew a day-old stubble of beard. He wore round his neck a collar of many washings and a doubtful ironing, and a tie in a limp old age. He wore no coat, which is the summer fashion; his trousers were of khaki stuff and wrinkled meekly at his boots. The toes of his boots leaned up in search of something kinder than the stones. On the little finger of his left hand showed the signet ring of the house of Horrington, of Such-and-such Hall, England.
Prosperity and Mr. Horrington were coldly acquainted. Horrington was an idealist among men. Some pass their days mapping out new continents, others knit their brows over the printing press and the steam engine. Horrington had resolved on reading the riddle of how to build a fortune within call of a hotel and without hard work. He had met with poor success. He had eschewed hard work, and he had lived within reach of a hotel; but prosperity had shrugged shoulders at him. Devotion to an idea had lost him the affection of his cousin, Sir John; had found him a passage to Australia; had drifted him presently from town to bush. Unable to contend singly with ill-fortune, he had married a faded woman, who took him and his burdens, no one knew why. Mrs. Horrington painted a little, sang a little, worked her needle a little, played the piano a little—and these arts she taught the daughters of those parents who are not exacting if terms be cheap. So Horrington had kept constant to his idea. But the lean times had brought the pair to an alien land. For at Surprise they paint only when a new coat is due to the poppet-legs, and only ply the needle should a wall need repair. At Surprise the mouth-organ and the concertina soothe the ache for higher things.
The old man came to an end of his breath.
"Sir," Mr. Horrington began with a certain dignity. "You will own I have heard you with patience."
"Eh?" the old man grunted.