The housekeeper, greatly to my satisfaction, was engaged in clearing out the offices below ours, so that I was able to ascend without challenge and establish myself at my desk. I had not been there five minutes when another footstep sounded on the stairs and Hawkesbury entered.
I had thought it quite possible he might be there when I arrived, and was therefore not nearly so surprised to see him as he appeared to see me.
“What, Batchelor!” he exclaimed, “are you here?”
“Yes,” I replied, “are you?”
Why should he express such surprise, I wondered, at my doing just what he was doing?
“What brings you here at this hour?” he demanded, dropping for a moment the coaxing tone with which I had become so familiar the last day or two.
“What brings you here, for the matter of that?” I retorted.
If he thought I was going to clear out to please him, he was mistaken.
“Don’t address me like that,” he replied, with as great a tone of authority as he could assume. “I have a right to be here. You have none.”
“Until I am told so by some one better than yourself I sha’n’t believe it,” I replied.