“Tom Hammond!”
“Ralph Bastin?”
The friends presently passed into the great building, arm linked in arm, laughing and talking like holiday school-boys.
“Not three minutes ago, as I drove along in my cab, I was saying, ‘Oh! if only I could lay my hand on Ralph!”
They were seated by this time in Tom Hammond’s room.
“Why? What did you want, Tom—anything special?” the bronzed, travelled Bastin asked.
“Rather, Ralph! My second, poor Frank Marsden, has broken down suddenly; it’s serious, may even prove fatal, the doctors say. Anyway, he won’t be fit (if he recovers at all) for a year or more.”
He leaned eagerly towards his friend as he spoke, and asked,
“Are you open to lay hold of the post?”
“Yes.”