"I shall want a convenient house, and a staff of workwomen, and—and some one acquainted with business details and management."
"Go on," said Mr. Bunker. "A forewoman you will want, of course."
"Then, as I do not ask you to give me your advice for nothing, how are you generally paid for such services?"
"I charge," he said, "as arranged for beforehand. Time for talking, arranging, and house-hunting, half-a-crown an hour. That won't break you. And you won't talk too much, knowing you have to pay for it. Percentage on the rent, ten per cent. for the first year, nothing afterward; if you want furniture, I will furnish your house from top to bottom on the same terms, and find you work-girls at five shillings a head."
"Yes," said Angela. "I suppose I must engage a staff. And I suppose"—here she looked at Harry, as if for advice—"I suppose that you are the best person to go to for assistance."
"There is no one else," said Mr. Bunker. "That is why my terms are so low."
His nephew whistled softly.
Mr. Bunker, after an angry growl at people who keep their hands in their pockets, proceeded to develop his views. Miss Kennedy listened languidly, appearing to care very little about details, and agreeing to most expensive things in a perfectly reckless manner. She was afraid, for her part, that her own ignorance would be exposed if she talked. The agent, however, quickly perceived how ignorant she was, from this very silence, and resolved to make the best of so promising a subject. She could not possibly have much money—who ever heard of a Stepney dressmaker with any?—and she evidently had no experience. He would get as much of the money as he could, and she would be the gainer in experience. A most equitable arrangement, he thought, being one of those—too few, alas!—who keep before their eyes a lofty ideal, and love to act up to it.
When he had quite finished and fairly embarked his victim on a vast ocean of expenditure, comparatively, and with reference to Stepney and Mile End customs, he put up his pocketbook and remarked, with a smile, that he should want references of respectability.
"That's usual," he said: "I could not work without."