“Pretty stale to other people.”
“I venture to challenge that statement,” said Richards hotly. “I should like to have a decision on the point by some independent authority.”
“Ask her!”
Harriet, appealed to and ordered to speak without fear or favour, said she wanted to know why Arthur was sent away. The answer was to the effect if she had finished gorging herself with food, she could go upstairs and leave her father and his friend to discuss matters which her youth and sex prevented her from understanding. Harriet had not completed her share of the meal, but she obeyed at once.
“That’s the way to bring up a child,” said Richards, with a jerk of the head. “I’ve only got to give her a hint. Wonderful control I exercise. I give my orders; she carries ’em out.”
“You don’t seem overwhelmed with customers,” remarked the visitor, looking through the glass portion of the door.
“They either come with a run,” he explained, “or not at all.”
“I only go,” went on Wilkinson, “by what I’ve heard at the station. They came here once for the lark of the thing, but the notion seems to be that once is plenty.”
“And that,” ejaculated the ex-inspector bitterly, “that, I suppose, is what they call esprit de corps.”
“That’s what they call getting their own back. And I don’t want to discourage you, and I should like you to believe that I’m saying it only for your own good, but it’s pretty clear to my mind that, in regard to this tobacconist’s business, you’re going to lose your little all. The savings of a lifetime are going to vanish like smoke, or rather not like smoke, but into thin air. Unless,” added Wilkinson impressively—“unless you act wisely.”