“Now you, sir.”
Quong Ho, without hesitation, made havoc of the piles and swiftly arranged the twenty groups in an ascending scale of red.
“There’s not another man in London who could have done that under an hour,” said the shopman admiringly.
“When did you learn it?” asked Godfrey.
“Vain boasting, sir,” replied Quong Ho, “is far from my habits, but to me these differences are as obvious as black from white. It is only a matter of informative astonishment that they are not perceptible both to you and”—he took off his hat again—“to the most accomplished madam.”
“Look here, old chap,” said Godfrey, “what I want to know is this. How could you, with your exquisite colour sense, go about in that awful red and purple tie?”
“To assume the perfection of English pink,” replied Quong Ho, “I would make any sacrifice. At the same time, it gives me infinite satisfaction to discover that the taste of Water End is not that of the metropolis. Non omnes arbusta juvant humilesque myricae.”
“I beg your pardon?” cried Godfrey, with a start, almost, upsetting the high counter chair on which he was sitting.
Quong Ho, perched between Godfrey and Marcelle, turned with a smile.
“It is the Latin poet Virgilius.”