Aristide made a note of the address. “Is that all you can tell me?”
“Yes,” said the youth.
“I thank you very much, my young friend,” said Aristide, raising his hat, “and here is something to buy a smile with,” and, leaving a sixpence on the table to shimmer before the youth’s stupefied eyes, Aristide strutted out of the office.
“You had much better have written,” said I, when he came back and told me of his experiences. “The post-office would have done all that for you.”
“You have no idea of business, mon cher ami”—(I—a successful tea-broker of twenty-five years’ standing!—the impudence of the fellow!)—“If I had written to-day, the letter would have reached Chislehurst on Monday morning. It would be redirected and reach Hertfordshire on Tuesday. I should not get any news till Wednesday. I go down to Beverly Stoke to-morrow, and then I find at once Miss Janet and Miss Anne and my little Jean! The secret of business men, and I am a business man, the accredited representative of Dulau et Compagnie—never forget that—the secret of business is no delay.”
He darted across the room to Bradshaw.
“For God’s sake,” said I, “put that nightmare of perpetual motion in your pocket and go mad over it in the privacy of your own chamber.”
“Very good,” said he, tucking the brain-convulsing volume under his arm. “I will put it on top of The Times and the family Bible and I will say ‘Ha! now I am British. Now I am very respectable!’ What else can I do?”
“Rent a pew in a Baptist chapel,” said I.