“Don’t make too much of a mere trifle.”
“I advised him to put half of it away in the Post Office, and use the other half to rig himself out in a new suit and look respectable.”
“Excuse me,” interrupted Mr. Ardwick, rather anxiously, “but when did you say all this to him?”
“About a hour or so ago,” she replied, “when he came in and asked me to change the cheque for him. Knowing all the circumstances, of course I didn’t hesitate a single moment!”
I was doing a bit of debt-collecting at the time, said the proprietor of the tobacconist’s shop, and that was how I became acquainted with Mrs. Ingram. She felt grateful over my success with what was undoubtedly a tough job, and one word led to another, and eventually I consented to propose to her. She’ll be down directly. Wait and have a glance at her, and tell me if you think I acted wisely.
III—THE WONDERFUL START
Dazed by sudden introduction to a distinguished company, he glanced eagerly and confusedly around in the hope of finding some one who would give him a smile of encouragement. The most distinguished of all, seated opposite to him, acknowledged his bow and gave the order that a chair should be offered, and this was accepted.
Conversation did not immediately turn upon his affairs, and the delay enabled him to lean back and compose his mind; presently, no doubt, the others would switch discussion to the subject which excused his presence in this magnificent building. It had a strong scent of newness, a suggestion of the slate pencils used for the purpose of calculations in his early youth, calculations which were so often incorrect that he remembered how frequently in setting down a total he instinctively rubbed it out, under the impression that whatever he had written must be wrong. He did not become really clever in the management of figures until his London life began in Tooley Street, and that seemed a good many centuries ago. What was it, ’80 or ’81? February of ’80 it must have been; early part of February. Thirty-two years, that made him forty-six. He could remember the start quite clearly.
* * * * *
As he stepped out into a wooden shed that was called London Bridge Station, a matronly woman, to whom he gave assistance in finding an outside porter for her deal box, referred to him in a sentence of thanks as a smart little nipper, and this, an auspicious compliment, sent him to the barrier and out into Railway Approach with a good conceit of himself. In the telegraph-office he wrote on a form in a confident way, as though he had been used all his life to the dispatching of telegrams: