So he called for refreshments for two, and then entered on a friendly discourse with Durfy on things in general, and offered to make him a member of the club; then bringing the conversation round to Reginald, he hinted gently that he too had his eye on that young gentleman, and was at the present moment engaged in bowling him out.
Whereupon Durfy, after a slight hesitation, and stipulating that his name should not be mentioned in the matter, gave Sam what information he considered would be useful to him, suppressing, of course, all mention of the real promoters of the Select Agency Corporation, and giving the secretary credit for all the ingenuity and cunning displayed in its operations.
The two new friends spent a most agreeable evening, Sam flattering himself he was squeezing Durfy beautifully into the service of his “big job,” and Durfy flattering himself that this bumptious young pettifogger was the very person to get hold of to help him pay off all his old scores with Reginald Cruden.
Chapter Eighteen.
Poverty and Love both come in at the Door.
We left Reginald in a somewhat comfortable frame of mind after his interview with the pleasant clergyman and the stroke of business he had transacted on behalf of the Corporation. It had been refreshing to him to converse in terms of peace with any fellow-mortal; and the ready satisfaction of this visitor with the method of business adopted by the Company went far to dispel the uneasy impressions which Mrs Wrigley’s visit had left earlier in the day.
After all, he felt that he was yet on probation. When Christmas came, and he was able to discuss matters personally with the directors, he had no doubt his position would be improved. He flattered himself they might think he was useful enough to be worth while keeping; and in that case of course he would have a right to ask to be put on rather more comfortable a footing than he possessed at present, and to be entrusted with a certain amount of control over the business of the Corporation. He would also be able mildly to suggest that it would be more convenient to him to receive his salary monthly than quarterly, so as to enable him not only to live respectably himself, as became their secretary, but also to give regular help to his mother at home. As it was, with a beggarly thirteen shillings a week to live on, he was little better than a common office-boy, he would have said to himself, but at that particular moment the door opened, and the very individual whom his thoughts connected with the words appeared before him.
It was the very last apparition Reginald could have looked for. He had given up all idea of seeing the young desperado any more.