Rolfe rose and went to the outer office, where Macgregor stood patiently. He had waited there for best part of two days and, with a Scot’s tenacity, refused to be put off by any of the clerks. He wanted to see Mr Samuel Statham, “an’ I mean to see ’im, mon,” he told everybody, his grey beard bristling fiercely as he spoke.
He was evidently a man with a grievance. Such men came to Old Broad Street sometimes, and on rare occasions Mr Benjamin saw them. There were hard cases of men ignorant of the ways of business as the City to-day knows it, having been deliberately swindled out of their rights by sharks, concessions filched from their rightful owners, and patents artfully stolen and registered. But old Duncan Macgregor, with his white beard, was of a different type—the type of honest, hard-working plodder, out of whose brains the great Clyde and Motherwell works were practically coining money daily.
As Rolfe advanced to him he said:—
“I’m sorry, Macgregor, that Mr Statham is quite unable to see you to-day. He’s engaged three deep. I’ve told him you wished to see him, and he says that he much appreciates the great services you’ve rendered to the firm, and that you are to receive a rise of salary of fifty pounds a year, beginning the first of last January.”
“What!” cried the old man. “What—’e offers me another fifty pounds! ’E’s guid an’ generous; but I have na’ come here for that. I’ve come to London to see him—ye hear!—to see him—d’ye hear, Mr Rolfe, an’ I must.”
“But, my dear sir, you can’t!”
“Tell him I don’t want his fifty pound,” cried the old man so derisively that the clerks looked up from their ledgers. “I must speak to him, an’ him alone.”
“Impossible,” exclaimed Rolfe, impatiently.
“Why impossible?” asked the old fellow. “When Mr Statham knows the business I’ve come upon he won’t thank ye for keepin’ us apart. D’ye ken that, mon?” and his beard wagged as he spoke.
“I know nothing, Macgregor, because you’ve told me nothing,” was the other’s reply.