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ADVISORY BEN

E. V. LUCAS

ADVISORY BEN

A Story

BY

E. V. LUCAS

NEW

YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

COPYRIGHT, 1924,
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

ADVISORY BEN
—A—
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

ADVISORY BEN

CONTENTS

ADVISORY BEN

I

In the lives of all, even the least enterprising or adventurous, moments now and then arrive when a decision has to be made; and our demeanour at such times throws a strong light upon our character. Many of us postpone action, either sheltering behind a natural reluctance to do anything emphatic, or feeling that the Fates ought to arrange our affairs for us. After all, it is their métier.

But my Ben was not like that. My Ben (to give her her full name, Benita Staveley) was instantly practical, and her disapproval of the pastoral process known as letting the grass grow under your feet was intense. All her actions were prompt, without, however, coming within the zone of impulse. Even at twenty-two she envisaged a situation with perfect clearness, and knew her mind; but why I should mention twenty-two as though it were a tender age, I can't explain, except as the result of pure want of thought. To say of a man that he is twenty-two is often merely to accuse him of callowness; but in a woman twenty-two can be maturity in everything but actual physique; and this is especially the case with those who, like Ben, even from young girlhood have been relied upon by father, mother, brothers and sisters to solve their difficulties and make things smooth for them.

Ever since I have known Ben—and her mother and I were playfellows half a century and more ago—she has been a mixture of factotum and oracle, yet without ever for a moment declining into a drudge or losing gaiety. A Cinderella perhaps; but a Cinderella who went to the ball without any supernatural assistance; a Cinderella with a laugh and a retort; a Cinderella who won respect and as much chocolate as she wanted, both from those within the home and out of it. Not a few boxes, for instance, from my own hand.

But there had, as yet, been no glass slipper and no Prince, unless, of course, you count poor Tommy Clinton as one: Tommy, who has been coming home every summer from his billet in Madeira for the past six years with two mastering motives to impel him—one being the wish to carry off something, either in singles or doubles, at Wimbledon, and the other to propose again to Ben—and so far has had no success in either enterprise.

Personally I am glad that she didn't marry Tommy, for he takes his defeats too sweetly, almost indeed as though he preferred them to victories. Such plastic and easy-going youths, although they may be agreeable enough during the time of courtship, and as dancing partners, or even as husbands for a little while, never grow into the sterner stuff that our Bens require, desire and deserve. But girls who have the Atlas habit run, of course, great risks of attracting the men who want to be treated as though they were the world.

Under the circumstances it is a little odd that Ben, save for the punctual, if casual, annual attack of Tommy Clinton, was unpursued; but one has to remember that Colonel Staveley did not like young men about the house. Not that that makes any difference when passion rules, for we know how Love treats locksmiths; but at the time this story opens Ben was heart-free. She might appear indeed to strangers to look like becoming one of those attractive girls who somehow or other seem to be insufficiently attractive ever to marry. But I never thought so. She had, however, no doubt, missed the first matrimonial train, the one that conveys to the altar carriage-loads of immature, high-spirited couples on the edge of the twenties. Other trains come along later, but the service is not so good.

II

When a girl has been keeping house for her father for three or four years and her father then (although sixty-three) marries again, her position is not easy, nor does it demand a blind belief in all the malignant tradition that surrounds stepmothers to admit this. As a matter of fact, Colonel Staveley's new wife would probably have been happier if her stepdaughter had remained in the house. Indeed, I am sure of it, for she is neither a jealous woman nor a meddlesome; and Ben's knowledge of her home and of its master's ways would have made life more simple, while the girl herself would have been a companion when that master was playing bridge at his club or informing such of his fellow-members as would still listen to him what the Government—if it had a grain of sense—would do.

For some time—we are now in the year 1921—Ben and her father had had the house to themselves, for her mother was dead. This lady, I ought to say, had displayed something like genius in the ordered way in which at definite intervals, and with discreet alternations of sex, she had put her children into the world; first a girl and then a boy, and then a girl and then a boy, and so on—beginning with Alicia as long ago as 1883, and then Cecil in 1887, and then Merrill in 1890, and then Guy in 1894, until her youngest daughter's turn to arrive came in 1899, and Toby's, her youngest son's in 1902, and the tale was complete.

Of these six, when Colonel Staveley married again, only Ben was at home. Alicia had become Mrs. Bertrand Lyle and the mother of two boys and was now a widow; Cecil, who was a soldier in India, had married a French girl and was childless; Merrill had married a Hampshire vicar and was childless; Guy, also a soldier in India, was engaged to Melanie Ames, a friend of Ben's; and as for Toby, he was nominally imbibing learning at Oxford, but, like so many undergraduates of my acquaintance, seemed more often to be imbibing other things in London. I don't mean to excess, but dancing is a thirsty form of industry, and late hours have been known to lead to early restoratives.

Ever since Mrs. Staveley's death, the Colonel had counted on Ben, who was then eighteen, for everything that would promote his comfort. He knew—none better—that the first essential of a selfish man is an entourage of unselfish people. And of these Ben was the chief. It must not be thought that the Colonel was a bully; rather, a martinet. He suffered from a too early retirement, aggravated by his wife's meekness and complacency, and as he had not thrown himself into any amateur work, and was, by nature, indolent and conversational, he was left with far too much leisure in which to detect domestic blemishes. A pedant for routine, his eye, when it came to any kind of disorder or novelty of arrangement, was like a gun. There was one place and one only for every article in the house, beginning with the hat-stand in the hall; and his first instinct, if not thought, on entering his front door was to look for something out of position. And so onwards, through whatever rooms he passed.

When he descried a fault it was, formerly, his wife, and latterly Ben, who was court-martialled; and not the actual offender. This probably, while fortunate for that person, was even more fortunate for the Colonel, who might otherwise have been without cooks and parlourmaids most of his life, for servants often put up a better resistance to martinets than the martinets' own flesh and blood. But whereas Mrs. Staveley had been reduced too often to tears, Ben bore the assaults with a courageous or stoical humour.

"I can't conceive," the Colonel had exclaimed wrathfully, on the very day before this story begins, "why on earth people can't leave my umbrella alone."

"But it's there all right," Ben replied. "I noticed it in the stand a few minutes ago."

"Yes," he snapped, "but some idiot has rolled it up. That new girl, I suppose. I thought she looked an officious fool the moment I saw her."

"Well, father," said Ben, "if she did roll it up, it was purely through excess of zeal, that's all; and don't let us be too hard on excess of zeal in these times, when almost everyone is so slack."

"But what about her being too hard on my umbrella?" the Colonel demanded. "That's what I complain of. If I leave it unrolled—which I did very carefully and on purpose—it's no business of anyone else to roll it up. And no woman can roll an umbrella, anyway. It's an art."

"All right, father," said Ben, "it shan't happen again."

"I hope not," the Colonel barked back, "and it wouldn't have happened this time if you'd kept Atkinson. I can't think why you let her go."

"My dear father," said Ben, "I've told you again and again. She left in order to be married. Surely a girl must be allowed to marry if she wants."

"Pooh!" said the Colonel, with infinite scorn. "Marriage!"

It was on the next day that he announced his own engagement, through which Ben was driven to come to a decision as to her career.

III

When Belle Lorimer, the wealthy, merry, or at any rate not lachrymose, widow of Vincent Lorimer (of Lorimer and Lorimer, the stockbrokers), agreed to the Colonel's suggestion that together they should tie a second knot, the Colonel was probably assuming that Ben's capable control and intimate acquaintance with his needs and moods would still be available. Never an imaginative man, he had probably given no thought whatever to his daughter's temperament and character; enough that she was his daughter and he her father, that she was solicitous, remembering, and, above all, cheerful, and that she rarely provoked even the semblance of a scene. There had been scenes with her mother too often: the result less of mismanagement on Mrs. Staveley's part than on the Colonel's tendency to indulge an exacting nature to the full coupled with the advantage that the position of husband too often confers. For husbands are not merely husbands: they are also contemporaries; and as the predominant partners they have the great pull of beginning right. Daughters are of another generation, with fewer obligations, and the power actually to rebel, or, if it comes to the worst, bolt. Wives have stood at the altar and made promises; wives have brought money with them, and marriage settlements often very adroitly drawn up in the widower's interest; wives are too old to be influenced by detrimental new ideas. But daughters are different: daughters have made no promises, possess no financial resources, and are painfully susceptible to revolutionary notions. They are capable even of asking such upheaving questions as, "Why do I owe any duty to a father I didn't choose?"

The Colonel may have lacked imagination, but some self-protective instinct had worked in him to give Ben an easier time than her mother, poor woman, had ever had. But sweet as was Ben's nature, she was modernly conscious of certain duties and loyalties to one's own individuality, and, even before she came to talk to me about it, had quite determined that now was her opportunity to strike out a line for herself. And luckily she could to some extent afford it, for in addition to a little nest-egg consisting of the accumulation of interest in her minority, she now had, in common with her sisters and brothers, an income of two hundred a year from her maternal grandmother, the terms of that shrewd old lady's last will and testament being the culmination of a long series of indignities which, in the Colonel's opinion, she had put upon him. Surely a daughter (named Mrs. Staveley), he had said, should come before grandchildren? But the dead hand distributed more wisely.

IV

Alone one cannot do much on two hundred a year, but by pooling expenses two persons can exist without squalor on four hundred, especially if there is also a reserve in the bank, and this was Ben's idea. Her first step would be to join forces with her friend, Melanie Ames, to whom her brother Guy, now in India, had been engaged for the past three or four years, and share her rooms on Campden Hill—nice rooms too, right at the top, near the reservoir tower.

Melanie, who had also two hundred a year, was working at the moment as secretary to a Harley Street doctor; made his appointments; answered the telephone; saw to it (I suppose) that no current numbers of any illustrated papers ever got into the waiting-room (for someone must be in charge to maintain this inflexible custom); sent out all his accounts and as many receipts as were necessary; occasionally transacted commissions for the doctor's wife, who rarely came to town but did not like to think of the Sales going on without any of the doctor's fees to assist them; and now and then, in the summer, spent Sunday with the family at their house at Weybridge, where there was an excellent hard court. For this she received a salary of four pounds a week, which, added to her private income, enabled Miss Ames to add butter to her bread as a regular habit and, in her own phrase, "On the top of the stearic matter now and then to superimpose a little jam, old dear."

In whatever way Ben was to augment her own private income, it certainly would not be by acting as any doctor's secretary. She felt herself to be more restless, more creative, more managing than that. Her nature demanded the things of the moment and constant activity, and it would gall her to have to suppress anything that was up to date. But as to what she was going to do, she had not yet a glimmering. The first thing was to transfer herself to those nice rooms and Melanie's comforting, languid society, and it was during the Colonel's protracted and lavish honeymoon (which the late Vincent Lorimer paid for) in the South of France that Ben took down the water-colours and photographs in her sitting-room in the great obsolete house in Hyde Park Gardens, with its myriad stairs and no lift, and, with such furniture and books as were hers, moved to Aubrey Walk.

She then paid a long-promised visit to the country; and it was while she was staying there—with the Fred Lintots in Devonshire—that her great idea came to her. Like most of the best ideas, it came not with concentration and anxiety, but in a flash, and, also like most of the best ideas, it was the result of chance. I can refer to it with some authority because I was a fellow-guest and was in, so to speak, at the birth.

An American visitor being expected, the laws of hospitality (as well as those of his own country) decreed that a cocktail-shaker was essential. But there was none, nor could any shopkeeper within a radius of many miles produce one. No doubt, civilization having made inroads even on the desert, such articles might have been found on the sideboard of more than one Dartmoor mansion; but behind a counter, no; and the unfortunate New Yorker with his (alleged) vision of England as a promised land flowing with gin and whisky seemed to be in danger of heartbreak.

"What we who live in the depths of the country all need," said Mrs. Lintot, "is a London agent. Someone to do little jobs like this for us. I would cheerfully give five pounds a year to have a call on the services of anyone who would undertake London commissions for me. If I knew anyone like that, I could telegraph and have that shaker and all the nasty ingredients for cocktails here by the evening train."

It was then that a brain wave swept over me.

"If you will tell me the nearest telephone," I said, "I will arrange it through the hall porter at the club," and I did so.

It was in the course of our conversation on the way back from this telephoning errand, on which Ben had accompanied me, that her future was practically decided: she would herself become the London representative of the Mrs. Fred Lintots of the country. Many other duties in excess of this one came to be hers, as we shall see; but the germ of her activities in the little business in which I have the honour to be an obscure partner was the difficulty set up by the absent shaker. The Apostle James in his Epistle asks us to behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth, and the minute origins of deeds that shape our ends have always been a source of interest to me; but I never thought that the lack of such an article as a cocktail-shaker in Devonshire would lead either to my speculating in business with my old playmate's youngest daughter or drive me to become its historian. And here, although it is outside the scope proper of this narrative, it may be stated, as yet another example of the caprices of this illogical world, that when the American arrived he was found to be a life-abstainer.

V

Things on this planet are always happening at the same time; and it must follow (since it is only through meetings that the machinery is assembled which makes the world continue to exist) that, although parallels or divergences are the rule, now and then persons simultaneously start out upon lines of action which in due course arrive at the same point. It is fortunate that those persons are unaware of what the gods are doing with them. Life is not such fun that we can afford to dispense with the unexpected.

It chanced that at the very moment when Ben and I were discussing Mrs. Lintot's scheme at Dartmoor, Mr. John Harford, in the garden of Laycock Manor, was informing his startled mother that he had decided to chuck the law and open a second-hand book shop.

Mrs. Harford was properly horrified. The Harfords so far had been able to avoid trade.

"But this isn't trade," said her son. "This is a lark."

"Do you call it a lark," his mother inquired, "to be covered with dust—for there's nothing so dusty as old books, and very likely to catch horrible diseases—for there are no germ carriers like old books either? And"—she went on, before he could reply—"do you call it a lark to have to bargain with customers, because no one ever gives as much for an old book as it is marked? Even I know that. That's not my notion of a lark, anyway. And you'll have to start early, and leave late, and your health will go, and your nice looks, and all the money spent on your legal career will be wasted, and all the money you are going to put into this absurd business will be wasted too. By the way, where is that money coming from?"

"I was thinking of you, darling," said her son.

"Of me! Is the boy mad?" she inquired of the flowerbeds, the trees and the universe at large. "Do you seriously think that, feeling as I do about this offensive shop, I am going to help you to open it?"

"Yes, darling," said Jack. "And it won't be quite so costly as you think," he added, "because I'm not going into it alone. I've got a partner. Who do you think is joining me?"

"I haven't the faintest notion," Mrs. Harford replied. "But I hope it's an honest man or you'll be robbed. You're as much fitted to run an old book shop alone as I am to—to—well, these are the kind of sentences no one ought ever to begin. One used to say 'to fly' once, but everyone flies now, so there's nothing in it. But you know what I mean. Who is this partner, anyhow?"

"Patrick," said Jack.

"Patrick! Do you mean Mr. St. Quentin?"

"Of course. He's mad about it. And he's got some capital too."

"Well," said Mrs. Harford, "if Mr. St. Quentin thinks it's a good scheme, that's another matter. But only for himself. What is right for him, in his crippled condition, is one thing; what is right for you, is another. Let him run the shop alone, and you go on learning to be a distinguished K.C., there's a dear. Don't be changeable, my boy."

"I'm not really changeable, mother," said Jack. "This is my first departure. And it isn't as if I need slave my way up to success in a profession I don't really care very much for. I've come to the conclusion that I'd far rather be poor in a book shop than rich by pumping up excitement and rage in the interests of clients you can't bear the sight of and probably don't believe in. And I'm fond of books, and, as you know, I adore old Pat and in a way I feel pledged to him too after all our times together in the War; and with his one leg what else could he do? I was with him when he lost it and I feel bound to help."

"I can't agree," said Mrs. Harford, "that for a one-legged man second-hand book selling is the only possible employment, but I'll go so far as to say that I like you to feel like that about him. All the same, I don't see why he should need a partner. An assistant, yes, but why my son as a partner? And also, can there be enough profit in a second-hand book shop to keep two young men?"

"We shan't roll, of course," said Jack, "but we oughtn't to starve, and there's always the chance of picking up a first folio for a few shillings and selling it at its real value. So you will put up a little money, darling, won't you? You wouldn't like me to touch my capital, I know."

"No," said his mother. "I should hate it. All I can say now is that if Mr. Tredegar approves I'll see what I can do. And of course he must be consulted as to the premises you take, the lease, and all that kind of thing. You promise that?"

"Well, darling," said Jack, "I would promise it if I could. But I can't, because, you see, we've burnt our boats. We took the place a fortnight ago."

"How naughty of you!" said his mother. "Then nothing I can say now is of any use?"

"Nothing," he replied tragically. "Too late! Too late!"

"Where is this loathsome shop to be?" Mrs. Harford asked.

"In Motcombe Street," said Jack.

"But that isn't a popular part at all," his mother objected. "Very few strangers pass along there."

"Pat says we don't want them," said Jack. "We shall send out catalogues, and gradually get to be known. Of course we don't mind if someone comes in by chance and buys the first folio; but there'll be no fourpenny box or anything like that at the door. It's a good address, and the rent is low."

"And you've actually taken it?" his mother asked.

"Actually," he replied.

"You will break my heart yet," said Mrs. Harford.

"Never," said her son, lifting her into the air.

"Don't be so absurd; let me down!" the little lady cried.

"Not till you've withdrawn that abominable remark about breaking your heart."

"Very well then—but only under pressure."

"And not till you've kissed me like a loving and thoroughly approving mother."

"I can't do that."

"Well, kiss me anyway," said Jack, holding her still higher.

And she did. Mothers (bless them) can be very weak.

VI

It was on the following Sunday that I found myself in Aubrey Walk, discussing Ben's future with her, with Melanie Ames, and with two or three of the young men who were in the habit of dwelling within Melanie's aura. In Guy's absence in Meerut she did not deny herself certain detached male followers. More and more do English girls seem to be acquiring similar treasure.

The two girls made a pretty contrast: Ben so quick and alert, and Melanie so casual and apparently uninterested, although with an instant comment for every situation. Already, I observed, her tardiness had begun to draw out Ben's practicality. In appearance they were a contrast too, for Ben was fresh-complexioned, with rich brown hair which had maintained its steady natural shade ever since I had known her, whereas Melanie was pale and had changed the colour of her tresses three times at least and was now meditating a return from dark to fair.

Ben was not exactly clever or witty, but her brain was nimble enough and clear enough, and her laugh of such seductive clarity and readiness as to put men on their mettle. Women who make men talk better than they are accustomed to are always popular, even when they are plain; and Ben was by no means plain. Indeed, she had such pleasant looks as to cause constant surprise that she was still single and unattached; but only among those people who do not know how foolishly young men can choose their partners for life. Ben was probably too sane, too brightly normal. The feet of the young men of her acquaintance were either turned away from marriage altogether, or were dancing attendance upon creatures more capricious, more artificial, more suggestive even of decadence. Melanie, for example with her pallor and her exotic coiffure, was clearly more attractive to Tubby Toller and Eric Keene, who were plying her with cigarettes and other necessaries of life when I entered. Both these youths, who had been too young for the War, were now engaged in such walks of life as products of public schools and universities take to: Tubby having a clerkship in the Treasury, and Eric having one eye on the Bar, wherever the other may have been.

"Tell them about your scheme, Ben," said Melanie, when we were all at our ease.

"Well," said Ben, "there seems to be a vacancy for a kind of agent who will do all kinds of things for those who are too lazy or too busy or too helpless to do them for themselves and would pay to be relieved. Finding a house or flat, for example. There are heaps of people who would cheerfully give ten pounds to have these found for them. There are people all over the country, and in Scotland and Ireland, who would like their shopping done for them, particularly when the Sales come on. There are heaps of English people abroad—on the Continent, in India, in the Colonies—who want things done for them in London and have no one to apply to and trust. There is a constant demand for servants of every kind, not only housemaids and nurses, but chauffeurs and secretaries and private tutors. People want to know where they can have bridge lessons and golf lessons and billiard lessons. It's all very vague in my mind at present, but I'm sure there's something practical in it."

"It's not vague to me at all," said Tubby; "it's concrete. I've been thinking like a black while you've been talking, and I believe I've got a title. You must be original and alluring: a signboard, jolly colours, nice assistants."

"I should call it 'Ben Trovato,'" said Eric.

"Oh, don't!" Ben groaned. "No more puns on my unfortunate name, please."

"Or 'Ben's Balm for Harassed Housewives,'" Eric continued.

"Or just a notice like this," said Melanie:

DOMESTIC DIFFICULTIES
FORWARD SOLUTIONS WITHIN

"Be serious," said Tubby. "I've got a real title for you. What do you think of 'The Beck and Call'?"

"Very good," I said.

"I think you should have a signboard hanging out," said Tubby, "Like an old inn, and on the sign, which would be very gay, something like this:—

THE BECK AND CALL
DOMESTIC PROBLEM BUREAU
BRING YOUR NEEDS TO US
FEES MODERATE

"I don't know about 'moderate,'" said Melanie. "It's what the most expensive hotels always say."

"Yes, and 'Domestic Problems'?" said Eric. "Don't they usually mean rows between husband and wife? Admiralty, Probate and Divorce stuff?"

"I suppose so," said Tubby. "But it would be impossible to put up anything that could not be misunderstood by someone. In connection with 'Beck and Call' I think 'Domestic Problems' might stand. And, after all, if a wife did come to complain of her husband there would be no great harm done; she would simply be told that that kind of business was not transacted and sent off to the nearest police court or solicitor."

"But you could charge her for it just the same," said Eric. "After all, knowing who is the nearest or best divorce solicitor is very special knowledge and ought to be well paid for."

"Yes," said Tubby, "I've lived in the same house for two years, but I'll be hanged if I know where the nearest police station is, or the nearest fire station, or the nearest pawnbroker. Those are the valuable facts of life, and I am ignorant of all of them. I know where my own doctor lives, and my own dentist, but I haven't a notion where there is a strange one handy. And of course dentists never work at night. The address of a good dentist who would answer a night call would be worth a tenner to anyone. You ought to specialize in that, Ben."

"I will," said Ben. "You are being very useful to me. Go on."

"The best of everything," said Eric, hastily cutting in, "is a good thing to know. It takes a lot of finding out oneself. I've got a haberdashery chap, for instance, who is absolutely useless with socks. His vests are good, his shirts, his collars; but his socks are disgraceful. Very dear, and no wear in them at all. 'Advice as to the best shops for everything' would be a great line for you."

"I saw a shop the other day," Tubby said, "where there were Chinese birds' nests in the window. For soup. I'll give you the address, Ben. That will be something to start on."

"Yes," said Melanie, "and I know the best place for rings and bracelets made of elephants' hair. For luck, you know. You'd better make a note of that."

"And China tea," said I.

"And Waterford glass," said Melanie.

"And Japanese artichokes," said Tubby. "They're delicious and they're practically weeds, but how many greengrocers have them? Hardly any."

"And salad oil," said Melanie. "The awful cart-grease most people give you!"

"I'll tell you another thing worth knowing in your business," said Eric. "Places—seaside resorts—where the water isn't hard. My old father had a horror of hard water and all our summer holidays were regulated by that. But it was the most difficult thing to find out."

"I hope you're writing all these things down," said Ben. "I must have one of those big alphabetical books. I'd no idea how clever you are—you're well worth a guinea a box."

"That reminds me," said Eric. "The best chemists. Where to get the best soap."

"And the best lavender water," said I.

"And the best cold-cure," said Tubby. "Nothing so important as that."

"What price indigestion?" asked Melanie.

"Yes, of course," said Tubby. "I know of some ripping stuff."

"But you're going much too far," said Ben.

"Never mind," said Tubby, "you'll find it'll all help. You can't know too much."

"There's that wonderful place for jam in Paris," said Melanie. "I forgot the name. It's in the Rue de Sèze: oh yes, Tandrade. You see them making it in the shop. Nothing like it. I'm sure that anyone who could act as an intermediary between English people and the best French shops would make a fortune."

"Or the other way round," said Tubby. "I'll bet you France is full of people who would like to get things from London but don't know how. Think of the awful things they have to put up with now," he went on. "Have you ever been in a small French chemist's? No one but a peasant in a smock to look after you. And their shoe leather; I mean for men. And their umbrellas. I can see an International Shopping Bureau going very strong."

"Please stop," said Ben, in mock despair. "You're too resourceful. And what do you think," she asked, turning to me, "shall we call it 'The Beck and Call'?"

"I think that's admirable," I said. "I wish I'd thought of it."

VII

When Colonel Staveley, with his buxom Belle, returned from Cap d'Ail and found no daughter to receive him, he was bewildered and shocked.

Still, as everything was comfortable and the servants were welcoming and kind, and even more because it is not so simple or desirable to lose one's temper in the presence of second wives as first, the Colonel controlled himself; but when Ben called, he relaxed.

"I can't conceive why you aren't satisfied to go on here," he began. "Your mo—I mean Belle—would be delighted to have you. She likes you, I know. She's said so, often. She said so again only last night. And you like her, don't you?"

"Yes," said Ben. "I do. But I don't think this is the place for me any longer. So long as you were alone I was glad to do what I could; but you've got Belle now. It's her house. It wouldn't be right—apart from anything else—for me to live here now. I can't think why you don't see that."

"She doesn't understand the servants as you did," said the Colonel. "She—she doesn't understand me. Those sandwiches you used to cut me at eleven—no one gets me those any more. I mean, not as they ought to be: thin and soft and without crust."

"I'm sorry," said Ben.

"Sorry!" exclaimed the Colonel. "Sorry is as sorry does. If you really were sorry you'd come back. Where are you pigging it, may I ask?"

"I'm sharing Melanie Ames's flat in Aubrey Walk," said Ben. "It comes far cheaper and there's plenty of room. And as soon as I can"—here she produced the bombshell—"I'm going to open a business."

For an old warrior the Colonel took the blow badly. He had no words at all at first. "Business!" he then gasped; "what business?"

To his growing exasperation Ben told him our plans.

"Oh! he's in it," said her father, referring to my own modest financial share, and adding, if I know anything about him, "I never cared for the man, as you are probably aware."

He stamped up and down the room for a while and then began again.

"I'm not narrow-minded, thank God!" he declared. "Whatever else I may be, I'm not narrow-minded; but I'm bound to say I don't think it's quite fair to me to open an office of this sort. If you were taking up the secretaryship of a ladies' golf club I shouldn't mind. I'm all for women playing golf, so long as they have links of their own. Or a secretaryship to an M.P., say, as long as it wasn't a damned Labour member. But an office with a brass plate and your name—my name—on it, no! I draw the line there."

"It won't have our name," said Ben. "It's to be called 'The Beck and Call.'"

"Oh, is it?" he cried. "Is it? I like that! Colonel Staveley's daughter advertising herself at anyone's beck and call. A nice pill for an old soldier to swallow, a nice thing to explain away to one's friends."

Ben was silent for a while. Then, "I think you're taking it too seriously," she said. "Many changes have come about since you were young. The world has given up a lot of its sillinesses, and one of them is the prejudice against people going into business. I am convinced that no girl of twenty-two ought to be just a drone."

"I can't think why you never married," said the Colonel, peevishly.

"I suppose because it takes two to make a marriage," said Ben.

"You must have played your cards devilish badly," her father retorted. "There's Alicia she's married, even though her husband is dead. And Merrill's married. And most of your cousins are married. I can't understand what you've been doing."

"Some girls must be single," said Ben. "Why, there are millions more women than men in this country alone. I read the figures only the other day."

"It is the duty of every woman of spirit," said the Colonel, oracularly, "not to be one of them. And what," he continued, "will you do when all the money's gone?"

"I don't see why it shouldn't succeed," said Ben.

"Succeed!" the Colonel snorted.

"Well, some things succeed," said Ben. "Everything doesn't fail. Look at the people round you: they're not all bankrupt."

"Very nearly," said the Colonel.

"They seem to have money for a good many frivolities and luxuries still," said Ben. "Anyway, I mean to do my best to make it succeed. And I hope," she added, "that if you're in any difficulty here you'll come to 'The Beck and Call.' I must send Belle some cards when we're ready."

"You needn't trouble," said the Colonel. "If you ever see Belle or myself on your premises or catch us recognizing this nonsense of yours, I'll"—well, you know how that kind of man always finishes that kind of sentence—"I'll eat my hat."

"Don't do that, father," said Ben. "Promise me a new one instead."

"With the greatest pleasure in the world," said the Colonel.

VIII

The Colonel was not alone in his hostility to Ben's decision. Most of the family, indeed, expressed disapproval, which is a word that was, I suspect, originally coined for no other purpose than to describe the attitude of people to any novel or independent action on the part of any of their relations, the younger ones in particular.

Ben's eldest sister, Alicia, who had settled with her two children, Paul and Timothy, at Hove, after her husband, Bertrand, was killed in the war, came hurrying up to add her voice to the attacking chorus; but she was not as wholehearted as her father, because, never in favour of his second marriage, she was glad that Ben had left Hyde Park Gardens. That now, she agreed, was Belle's domain, and beyond keeping an eye on certain pieces of furniture and a picture or so which she had marked down as some day to be her children's, she intended to have no more interest in it. But it was not in the least her idea that Ben should live with Melanie Ames and start out on a career of her own. Alicia's idea was that Ben should join her at Hove and help with the boys; and she put her case strongly.

"Of course it's what you ought to do," she said. "They would be good for you and you would be good for them. They ought to see somebody else besides me, now that their poor father has passed over, and the more you have to do with children now, the better you will understand them when you have some of your own. For I suppose you intend to marry," she added sharply. "You haven't got all this absurd modern girl's dislike of men as anything but tennis and dancing partners?"

Ben said that at the moment she was thinking not of men but of her livelihood.

"Nonsense," said Alicia. "You know perfectly well you are doing it purely from selfishness. You are excited about going into business just as other girls would be excited about their coming out. It's sheer self-indulgence. And you don't need the money," she went on; "you have grandmamma's two hundred, or whatever it is, and if you lived sensibly with me and put it into the common stock you would have no anxieties whatever. I am sure Bertrand would have wished it. In fact, I happen to know that he does wish it. I asked him last night."

Ben opened her eyes. "What can you mean?" she asked, "by saying that you know he wishes it, and that you asked him last night—when he's dead?"

"I don't think of Bertrand as dead," said Alicia. "There is no death. He has merely passed over. I am in constant communication with him. I am very psychic; strangely so, considering what a matter-of-fact family we are. A throwback, I suppose." She closed her eyes. "Would you go against Bertrand's express desire?" she asked earnestly.

"I don't know," said Ben, "but in any case I should rather have it expressed to me direct."

"And so you shall if you will come to Hove," Alicia replied eagerly. "There is a Circle there which you shall join. Not that I have to call in any medium myself; I am too psychic. And Bertrand and I are one, as we always have been. But it would be necessary for you."

"No," said Ben. "I should be afraid. I don't like that kind of thing. And it's too late anyhow."

"I think you're horridly selfish," said Alicia. "And speaking as your elder sister, almost old enough to be your mother, I want you to know that I don't think you ought to be running a business at all. It's not nice. The kind of women who run businesses are not nice; they're hard and they've usually had a past. You will acquit me of narrow-mindedness, I am sure, but that's how I feel. And I don't believe it's too late to get out of the agreement, if you've signed one. Considering the way most house-agents behave, I think it's one's duty to get out of agreements now and then, just as a lesson to them."

"My dear Alicia!" Ben exclaimed.

"Well, I do," Alicia replied petulantly. "And as for poor Bertrand, he'll be heartbroken. He had built all his hopes on your joining us at Hove."

"Is he in Hove too?" Ben asked.

"Practically," said Alicia.

"No," said Ben; "I can't come; it's impossible."

"And then there's your health," said Alicia. "You'll lose your complexion poring over registers and accounts in London. You'll begin to look raddled; like all women in business. People will call you 'capable,' and that's the end. No one wants a capable woman, out of her office."

Ben only laughed.

"And Hove's so invigorating," Alicia resumed. "The Sea Wall! And haven't you any interest in your nephews? You were fond of Bertrand, weren't you? You always seemed to be. Are you going to neglect his boys? Ben, dear, I thought better of you."

Alicia sighed and looked like one against whom the whole world was arrayed.

"You're making me feel very guilty," Ben said. "But it's no good. I can't change now. And I believe—if this is selfishness—that a certain amount of selfishness is right. I am sure that one ought to try to be independent; everyone ought. And why shouldn't it be called 'self-help' or 'self-reliance' which are considered virtues, instead of 'selfishness'? Anyway, I must go on with it now. If it fails, I may change my views altogether, or, of course, if anything happened to you, and Paul and Timothy were left stranded, I might think it was my duty to come to the rescue. But not now."

Alicia made a noise as of one who would live for ever.

"Besides," Ben went on, "it would only mean for a short time probably. You're not so settled as all that. Supposing you were to marry again."

"Ben!" exclaimed Alicia, "I'm shocked at you."

"I'm sorry if I hurt you," said Ben. "But people do marry again. Look—well, look at father."

"I decline to look at father," said Alicia. "I think it's horrid. At his age too."

"Well, then," said Ben, "look at Belle. She's not so very much older than you."

"I think that's almost more horrid," said Alicia. "And it's very cruel of you, I think, to say such a thing to me, knowing as you do how devoted Bertrand and I always were and still are. And the boys, too! What man wants to marry a widow with two boys?"

"I feel convinced that it has been done," said Ben. "But I apologize. And I am very sorry, but I must repeat that I am going to be independent; I want to stand absolutely alone. I think it's my duty."

"I'm tired of the way people use the word 'duty' when they want to please themselves," said Alicia.

"My dear Alicia," said Ben, "don't let's start all over again. You said that before. If you knew what efforts I make not to say things twice in one conversation!"

Alicia compressed her lips with grim firmness. "Very well," she said. "There's no more to be done. But it will be terrible telling Bertrand."

"Surely," Ben suggested, "he knows already?"

"Ah, that I cannot say," said Alicia. "All I know is, he counts on me for everything."

IX

Ben's second sister, Merrill, whose husband was a country vicar, also had something to say against Ben's project, and said it; but with less acrimony than Alicia. Merrill had always been easygoing.

"Of course it was quite right to leave father," she agreed. "You couldn't have gone on there, with that fat woman. And what we're going to call her I have no notion. Nothing shall ever make me say 'Mother.' What do you call her?"

"I call her Belle," said Ben. "We arranged it."

"I couldn't do that," said Merrill. "I don't believe in the word as a name anyway. I think of it as something entirely different; something, between you and me, of which I'm sick to death, as you would be if you lived in a vicarage a few inches from a church. Ugh!—bells! But the name's a problem. 'Mother' is impossible; 'Stepmother' is absurd; 'Mrs. Staveley' would be absurd too. The wisest thing is not to see her at all and then one needn't call her anything. But that," she continued, "is nothing. What I want to ask you to do is to come and live with us; and if you had a spark of decency you'd do it."

Ben made a movement of dissent.

"And it wouldn't be such a sacrifice either," her sister went on, "for there's lots of things to do. Egbert won't have a car, it's true, but we can get one in the Village, only a bob a mile. There's a golf links four miles off and there's plenty of tennis and bridge. There are some quite decent young men; one, by the way, who's rolling."

"But there are the bells!" said Ben.

"Never mind about them," Merrill urged. "One can get used to anything—except," she added, "Egbert. Be a sport and think of your sister. I assure you, my dear, I shall go mad if I don't have someone to talk to and be with. You wouldn't have me in an asylum, would you?"

"But my dear Merrill," said Ben, "how can it be as bad as that? What is the matter with Egbert? You used to like him. I can't understand why everyone seems to get so tired of their husbands or wives. It makes me glad I'm not married. You liked him once, tremendously."

"I don't say I hate him now," said Merrill, "but he's become impossible. He spends his whole life between neglecting the parish and writing his book. It's not living at all. And no one will read his book. Who wants books on the Hittites? I tell him he'd far better be paying some attention to the English in the village, but that makes him cross. And when he's not writing, he's complaining of being overlooked and not being made a canon. He's always perfectly sweet and polite to me, and I could slap him. Not that we quarrel: not a bit of it. Ours isn't the kind of house you could call a 'Bickerage' for a moment. But we just stagnate. He doesn't really need me and I'm bored by him. Oh, how bored! If only he would take one or two backward boys it would be a relief, a change, but he won't. He says they would interfere with his work.

"This isn't," she went on, "the kind of life that I married for. But then, what is it that one marries for? I know what the Church service says, of course, only too well. But surely there should be some fun too? That is what we're brought up to believe and expect; but I assure you, Ben, I've never been anything in Egbert's life whatever. Not really. I'm merely in his house; I see that his meals are punctual and fit to eat; I see that he has clean surplices; I see that his study is dusted and the fire lit; and I listen to his tales of woe. And that's the end of it. I'm just his wife. He wanted me badly enough, and he got me, and that was the end. It has never occurred to him that a wife could want to be anything more than the punctual inmate of a man's house. I can't even keep a dog, because dogs get on his nerves. But he likes you—you could make him a little more human, I believe, if anyone could. Do give up this 'Beck and Call' stuff and come and help me. I'm certain it's your duty."

Ben shook her head.

"But don't you do anything in the parish?" she asked. "Don't you visit?"

"Do I not visit?" exclaimed Merrill. "Of course I do. I have to. It all falls on me. But is that what I was made for? Why, I'm only thirty-one. Is that any life for a woman of thirty-one? No, Ben dear, be a sport and come and stay with us and you and I will have some fun and you'll keep me from thinking too much and regretting too much. Egbert won't worry you a bit; he'll hardly know you're there."

"My poor Merrill," said Ben, "I wish I could. But it's too late. I've got into this business and I must stick to it."

"Very well, then," said Merrill, "let me be your first client and get me a nice jolly curate, even if I have to pay for him myself."

X

Uncle Paul, however, approved, and Uncle Paul was a valuable ally. Uncle Paul was Mrs. Staveley's and Lady Collum's brother: a man of about sixty who had lived with his parents as long as they lived and then had taken rooms in Bayswater with a housekeeper. Naturally shy and unambitious, and made more shy by an unconquerable stammer, he had never gone into any business but remained home-keeping and retired, famous in the family for his mechanical skill. If a doll's house were required, Uncle Paul made it. His jig-saw puzzles had been marvels of difficulty before the term jig-saw was invented. With his lathe and other tools he added little improvements to most of the pieces of mechanism that shops carelessly put forth.

But his masterpieces were ships, possibly because his father had been a shipowner and much of Paul's odd time as a boy and youth had been spent in prowling about the vessels in harbour. The sea itself had no attraction for him; he was the worst of sailors; but by everything to do with ships he was fascinated.

From making models for young friends and testing them, he had come to sailing them himself, and was one of the most assiduous frequenters of the Round Pond, with the long wand of office proper to all Round Pond habitués who have Masters' Certificates.

That was his principal outdoor recreation. The only other motive that could take him from his abode was his love of music, instrumental rather than vocal, and the Queen's Hall knew few figures more intimately than this tall spare man, with a slight stoop, a pointed grey beard and highly magnifying gold-rimmed spectacles.

It has never been satisfactorily determined whether the saying about the darlings of the gods dying young means young in years or young in heart. But if it ought to run "Those whom the gods love are still young no matter when they die," then Uncle Paul was one of the elect.

"I think," he said, after listening to the outline of "The Beck and Call" project—and you must understand that whenever Uncle Paul spoke, it was with great difficulty, the words sometimes keeping distressingly out of reach for agonizing moments (during which, like so many sufferers from this impediment, he refused all assistance) or rushing out pellmell—"I think," he said, "it's a good scheme. Very amusing at any rate. You will meet such lots of odd people. And you will be doing something. I don't mean," he added hastily, "that you have not been busy up to now. We have all admired the way you kept house and devoted yourself to your father. But that was routine. Now you will be in the world and having adventures." He sighed. "What fun!" he said.

Ben amplified, and in the course of the story of the genesis of her plan mentioned Mrs. Lintot's remark that she would willingly pay an annual subscription for these vicarious London services.

"Yes," said Uncle Paul, "that's of the highest importance, a guarantee. Now what you have got to do is to write to all your friends explaining your scheme and offering to be at their service for a year at, say, three guineas each, and asking them to write to all their friends about it too, like one of these snowballs one reads of, or the American officer's prayer. Anybody living far out of London ought to find it well worth three guineas, and three guineas is nothing. Lots of them may drop off after the first year, but it would give you a start. If you get only sixty or seventy annual clients to begin with, that would ensure your rent. Some of these people would probably get their money's worth over and over again, even if others didn't. At the end of the year, you might have to raise the subscription, but in the first year you will be making your name and you can afford to be generous. I shall put down three guineas myself, but what for, I haven't the vaguest notion at the moment; and if I get no return I shan't grumble—for the unusual reason that it will be my own fault."

"I should hate to take three guineas from you," said Ben. "You couldn't possibly make so much use of me as that, and I'd rather do it for nothing."

"Hush!" said Uncle Paul. "Don't say such things. The dangerous words 'for nothing' must disappear from your vocabulary the moment you go into business."

"How horrid!" said Ben. "But I defy you to think of anything you could want from me. When you've got Mrs. Crosbie eating her head off, how could you need 'The Beck and Call'?"

"We'll see," said Uncle Paul. "Here's my cheque anyway. I want to be your first client."

XI

In the choice of business premises Ben showed not a little sagacity. I know, for I was with her.

She began by consulting a firm of house-agents, which, like so many of those necessary but unsatisfactory organizations, appeared to consist of twins—Messrs. Charger & Charger. What the evolution of a house-agent is, no one has ever discovered, but an addiction neither to industry nor to strict veracity seems to be an essential to their perfected state. All house-agents have youth and eloquence and make an attempt at social ease. The effrontery that accompanies the sale of motor-cars is never quite theirs: they do not actually puff tobacco smoke at their customers while leaning against the wall with their hands in their pockets, but they probably would like to.

Whether we saw either of the principals—either Charger or Charger—we never knew; but the place was full of glib young men who employed the first-person-singular in their conversations, each of whom in turn might have been Charger or Charger, but all of whom probably were not.

It was by disregarding their suggestions that Ben gradually arrived at a decision.

"I am thinking," she said, "of opening an office where advice can be sought on all kinds of domestic problems, and I want it to be in a wealthy residential district but not in a main street."

"Not in Piccadilly?" the young man asked.

"No, not in a main street," said Ben.

"I have a very desirable upper part in Lower Regent Street," he said.

"Not in a main street," Ben replied.

The young man turned over the pages of a register.

"How would you like Long Acre?" he inquired.

"Would you call that a wealthy residential district?" Ben replied.

"What about the Strand?" he asked.

"Not in a main street," said Ben. "Besides, surely it must be in a part where women shop? The Strand is mostly full of men and tourists, isn't it? I know I personally have never been there except to a restaurant or a theatre."

"That's true," said the young man. "A shopping quarter. I understand. Somewhere off Oxford Street, you mean."

"Well, what have you got there?" Ben asked.

"I'm afraid I haven't anything," he said. "Or South Audley Street?"

"Yes," said Ben, "that's much better."

He looked through his register again.

"No," he said, "there's nothing there. But"—brightly—"what about the upper part of a garage near the Imperial Institute? I can recommend that most highly."

It was then that we came out.

Taking our fate into our own hands, we spent the afternoon in walking in likely places, and at last came upon an old book shop in Motcombe Street, which is near Knightsbridge and between the distinguished and far from poverty-stricken squares of Eaton and of Lowndes. At the side of the shop was a signboard in white and light green on which were the agreeable words:—

THE
BOOKLOVERS'
REST

In the window were rows on rows of volumes, old and less old, some opened at the title page and others at delectable coloured plates.

The shop was evidently new, judging by the paint; and from a window above it a notice emerged stating that the upper part was to let and was suitable for offices.

As we approached, a small and intensely waggish black spaniel dashed out of the door with all the excitement that such dogs manifest when their masters are coming too, and a moment later a fresh-looking young man in a tweed suit, without a hat, sauntered from the shop, crossed the road and surveyed the premises with a pleased proprietary eye. After a brief space he called "Patrick!" and there came to the doorway another young man, who had a more studious air and, we noticed, limped. The first young man said nothing but slightly extending both hands, elevated his thumbs to a vertical position.

"Good," said the lame one, and then all three retired to the recesses of the shop.

Meanwhile Ben's mind was working very quickly. Motcombe Street, she remarked, was only a few yards from the two great Knightsbridge drapers, and Sloane Street with all its millinery and boots and dressmakers was close by. If two young men thought it a good enough spot to establish themselves as second-hand book sellers, might it not be equally or even more suitable for our purposes? And especially so if she could induce a Knightsbridge or Sloane Street tradesman, or both, to allow her to put up a finger-board. At any rate, the rooms must be looked at.

In the course of the conversation that followed, Ben said that the only real drawback was that there was no private door. The upper part could be reached only through the shop. But neither Mr. Harford, the young man with the dog (whose name appeared to be "Soul"), nor Mr. St. Quentin, the young man with the limp, thought this a very serious objection.

"If you don't mind," said Mr. Harford, "we shan't. You will probably have more customers than we, and we shall try and bag some of them."

"Yes," quoted Mr. St. Quentin, or Patrick, "'and those that came to scoff remained to pray.' In other words, if they can't get a governess or a chauffeur from you, they may stop on the way down to buy a cookery book from us."

"That's too one-sided," said Ben. "Equally why shouldn't people who can't find anything they want on your shelves, be sent upstairs to see what I can do for them?"

"Of course," said Mr. Harford. "Only yesterday, for example, we had an old boy from America. Americans, it seems, want either first editions of Conrad and Masefield, or something to do with Dr. Johnson. This was a Johnsonian, but he was also in need of a service flat. Now if you had been here I should have pushed him up and you would have fleeced him."

"Yes," said Mr. St. Quentin, "and then there was that rummy old bird this morning. She wanted a novel. Anything to pass the time, she said. But when she came to look round, there was nothing that she hadn't read or that she wanted to read. Dickens was too vulgar and Thackeray was too cynical. Meredith was too difficult and Hardy too sad. Trollope was too trivial and George Eliot too bracing. Wells was too clever and Bennett too detailed. Galsworthy was too long and Kipling too short. And so on. She ended by offering me a fiver for Jack's spaniel, which she called a 'doggy.' After I had repulsed the offer she asked me if I could tell her the best play that had a matinée to-day. The world's full of these drifters. Now if you had been here, I should have steered her to you."

"To waste my time?" Ben asked.

"Not a bit of it. She was rolling in money; all she needed was a directing mind, such as I am sure yours is. What she wanted was to get through the day, and you would have helped her, and business would result. As a matter of fact, she did buy something; she bought 'Tom Brown's School Days,' for the curious reason, into which I was far too wily to enquire further, that her dear father was at Winchester."

"One little point, Miss Staveley," said Mr. Harford. "You are setting up an advice bureau. Won't you give us your opinion on our signboard: do you think it reads all right?"

"It seems to me most alluring," said Ben; "unless possibly the word 'Rest' might lead people to stay too long."

"Well," said Mr. St. Quentin, "as a matter of fact we had a tussle over that and Jack won. I was for just 'Bookbuyers' Corner.'"

"Very pretty," said Ben.

"Yes," said Mr. Harford, "but as I very properly and acutely pointed out, this isn't a corner."

"Still—" Ben began.

"No," said Jack, "a corner's a corner."

"Very well," said his partner, "I give in; but what do you think he wanted on the sign as we now more or less have it? You won't credit it, Miss Staveley. Catch hold of something while I tell you."

"Ah, shut up," said Jack.

"He wanted 'Ye' instead of 'The.'"

"No!" said Ben, in horror.

"He did," said Patrick: "he actually and infernally did. Like a tea shop. He's not altogether a bad-looking man; he would have taken quite a decent degree but for the War; he has played cricket for his county; he induced me to become his partner; and yet he wanted 'Ye' instead of 'The.'"

"Can this be true?" Ben asked.

"Well, I stick to it," said Jack. "We are out to make a living and I know what people are. You might lose a few highbrows by saying 'Ye' but you'd get a bigger following generally. Still, Patrick here wouldn't give way. Well," he made an exaggerated gesture of fatalism, "we know what the reason will be if we're bankrupt, don't we, old Soul?" and he patted the waggish spaniel.

"And," said the lame one, "I haven't told you the worst. He came down one day with a design lettered by one of his architect friends,

'YE OLD BOOKE SHOPPE'

in which 'shop' had two P's and an E. I haven't fully recovered yet——"

"It would have meant great business," said Jack, defiantly. "There's a fascination about that double P and that final E that lots of people find irresistible. No matter, the die is cast. By the way," he added to Ben, "I suppose you're calling yourself something?"

"I was thinking of 'The Beck and Call,'" said Ben. "I wanted a signboard rather like yours."

"Make it 'Ye,'" said Mr. Harford, "and you'll be a millionaire."

"No," said Ben. "I couldn't face my friends. It's bad enough as it is."

"And you'll take our upper part?" Mr. St. Quentin asked.

"I can't say at the moment," said Ben. "I must consider. But if I don't it will probably only be because I don't think either of you is serious enough to be my landlord."

But after the lawyers had done their worst with it, Ben signed an agreement.

XII

In assembling her staff Ben experienced a certain amount of luck in stumbling upon Miss Peterson.

Miss Peterson was one of those plain, capable but not originative women whose destiny it is to work loyally for others. And Ben was just the kind of other for whom they work with the most zeal and fidelity. From Miss Peterson's position as keeper of the outer office and the door, she came to be known as Jan, which was short for janitress, and but for her "The Beck and Call" would probably not have lasted a month. With her untiring devotion to buttress it, it turned the corner.

Jan arrived early and left late, and, what is more, refused to go out for lunch, but ate it furtively at her desk. Whether men eat too much lunch or women too little is a question that has never been settled; and as they are totally different creatures there is probably no need for any comparisons. Suffice it to say that Jan could not be induced to improve her scanty and hasty repast, and seemed to be fairly healthy on it. A certain element of self-sacrifice or even mortification was necessary to her happiness; she was a mixture of watchdog and nun. If ever she permitted herself a luxury or accepted an invitation to a party of pleasure, she did it as though performing a penance. Such was her own humility and her innate conviction that this is a vale of tears, and ought to be, that every happiness or delight was a cause of suspicion and surprise. Praise-God-Barebones and his companions planted the English soil deeper than they knew.

The only other member of the staff, at first, was a precocious London boy, certainly no Puritan, who was known by his own wish as Dolly. His real name was Arthur, which his friends, all as Cockney as himself, soon converted to Arfur, not only because that was their general tendency but because his surname Crowne set up an additional allurement to do so. Arfur Crowne in course of time was reduced, on the lines often followed in the evolution of nicknames, to 'arf a dollar, and from this it had been an easy gradation to Dolly.

Dolly's age was sixteen, and he was small for it. He was also old for it, in so far as dress and knowledge of the world, or at any rate of London, were concerned. He always wore a bowler hat and carried a cane, and in his possession, on view but never known to be worn, was a pair of smart tan gloves. In addition to an exhaustive acquaintance with London's houses of variety, even in the outlying districts, football heroes, cricket heroes, cinema stars and probably winners on the flat, Dolly could give you in a moment the number of the bus you needed for any route.

Where he got the money to visit so many places of entertainment, no one at first knew; for his wages could not well be large and there was no reason to suspect him of dishonesty. But he was so regularly in funds as to lead to the suspicion that he had private means and was working at "The Beck and Call" for a wager. So Tubby Toller maintained. And, as he said, it would be very dull to find out where the money came from, for one of the compensations in this dreary life of ours is the opportunity we get for wondering how other people can afford it.

But later the secret came out, for Mr. Harford gave it away. Mr. Harford's range of interests on the pleasant planet on which he found himself was, I ought to say, sufficiently wide to include the too often pathetic efforts to come in first on the part of those untrustworthy but beautiful animals with noble heads, glossy coats, and four slender legs on which most English men, and many English women, "have something" every day. It was Dolly's special privilege to meet in his lunch hour mysterious acquaintances with special information about the "three-thirty," and this information Mr. Harford was delighted to receive. Now and then, of course, the horse "went down," but in the main the two confederates did very well.

Dolly's post was by the telephone in the outer office, which, on occasions, could be connected with another instrument on Ben's desk; but his dominating desire and ambition was, by his own knowledge and discretion, to render any such connexion unnecessary. So far from sharing Jan's willingness to lunch in, Dolly was off, with his gloves and cane, immediately the clock struck one—to the Ritz or Savoy, according to Jack Harford. He was never late in returning, but sometimes stood on the step finishing a cigarette until the hands pointed to two.

Mr. Harford and Dolly may have been almost on an equality, but it was one of the jokes at "The Booklovers' Rest" that Dolly was too aristocratic to have any friendly relations with the boy—Ernie Bones—who opened and shut that abode of culture, and carried to the post such parcels as were dispatched, and once a month stuck stamps on myriad catalogues. But there are grades, right through the social scale, and Dolly stood on a plane far above Ernie's.

Ernie had never worn or carried gloves in his life. They would have looked as strange on him as a monocle in the eye of a London roadmender.

XIII

Aunt Agatha had of course to be told. Aunt Agatha was the widow of Sir Davenport Collum and Ben's mother's sister. Her opinion on any subjects whatever doesn't really matter, but Ben would not have been happy to have left her in ignorance.

"You mustn't think me narrow-minded," Aunt Agatha said, "because I'm not. Whatever else I may be, I'm not narrow-minded. But I really do think you might have chosen something better to do than to be a maid-of-all-work or a Jack-of-all-trades at the command of anyone with the money to pay your fee. You—you demean yourself. We should have dignity."

"Yes, aunt," said Ben, "but one must maintain oneself first. There is no dignity without independence."

"But surely—don't you remember Landseer's picture?" inquired Lady Collum.

"No, aunt. That was 'Dignity and Impudence,'" Ben replied.

"Yes, so it was. I had forgotten. And, after all, the words are very much alike. I can see it now. We had an engraving in the hall at home. Two dogs. Well, dear, as you were saying?"

"I was saying, aunt," Ben resumed, "that dignity without independence is only a shadow. What I want is to make my own living and 'The Beck and Call' seems to be a way. At any rate, it is worth trying."

"A horrid phrase," said Lady Collum. "'Beck and Call.' Why, it suggests dependence and nothing else. Servility even. You belong to every one but yourself; you will be London's errand girl."

"But if I don't mind that, what then?" Ben asked. "And besides, I shall reserve the right to select my jobs."

"Beggars," said Aunt Agatha, "cannot be choosers. There's a proverb to that effect and I am a great believer in proverbs. An apple a day—ah! how true!"

"Yes, aunt, but how miserable you would be if anything kept your own darling doctor away! And I believe it's really an onion, as a matter of fact."

"Onions undoubtedly are very healthy," said Lady Collum. "But what were we saying? Oh, yes. This office of yours. 'The To and Fro.' Where is it to be?"

"'The Beck and Call,' aunt," Ben corrected. "I have taken two rooms over an old book-shop in Motcombe Street."

"Taken them!" exclaimed Lady Collum, in horror. "I had no idea it had gone so far as that. What is the use of my giving you any advice if the deed is done? It's like locking the garage door after the car has been stolen."

"But I don't think I was asking you to advise me," said Ben. "I was merely telling you about it, because I thought you would like to know, and in case you knew of anyone who might want to make use of me."

"Oh dear! Oh dear!" exclaimed Lady Collum. "To think that it's all settled! You're plighted to it now."

"Yes, aunt," said Ben. "The die is cast. There is no looking back. We begin next Monday."

"Plighted!" murmured Lady Collum, dreamily. "What a beautiful word it might be! Can be. Why, my dear, don't you marry some nice man instead of opening offices?"

"Well, aunt, for one reason, no one that I cared for sufficiently has asked me," said Ben smiling.

"Then you have had a proposal or two?" said Lady Collum, eagerly. "I'm glad."

"Not very serious ones," Ben told her. "Only from Tommy Clinton."

"Oh, him!" said Aunt Agatha. "And yet you're very pretty," she went on. "What's the matter with the other young men? Let's see, how old are you?"

"Twenty-two," said Ben.

"That's a little late for the young ones," said Lady Collum, "or much too early. Hasn't any nice older man asked you?"

"No, aunt," said Ben, "and I don't know that I want one either. Marriage isn't everything. I can imagine an amusing business being far more entertaining than a husband. But surely you see," she went on more seriously, "that now that father's married again I must be independent. I can't possibly go on living at home."

"Ah, yes," said Lady Collum. "Of course. Poor child, yes. The cruel and ugly stepmother, my heart bleeds for you."

"But dear Aunt Agatha, she isn't cruel, and she isn't ugly," said Ben. "And I like her."

"That's your sweet nature," Lady Collum replied, "or her artfulness. And what about poor little Toby?" she resumed. "His home closed to him. I can't think what your father was about. Surely at sixty-three he might have continued to face life alone and then everything would be happy still, and poor little Toby not at the mercy of this heartless woman and you not driven out into the world to start 'The Hide and Seek.'"

"'Beck and Call,' aunt," Ben corrected. "And I haven't been driven out; I was glad to go."

"So you say," said Lady Collum. "But it's your kind heart. Anyway, it's that motherless child I'm thinking most about—poor Toby."

"But, aunt, dear," said Ben, "Toby is hardly ever at home. He's at Oxford until the vacation, and then he stays with friends. And he's six feet tall. It's far too long since you saw him. I assure you he's in no need of such sympathy."

"Poor child, poor child!" Lady Collum murmured. "It is dreadful when the cuckoo displaces the young meadow-pipits. I saw it on a film. Dreadful! My poor little Toby!"

"Well," said Ben, rising to go, and abandoning the struggle with preconceived ideas (always a stubborn one), "you'll send to me if you want any shopping done while you're down in the country, won't you?"

"Of course I will," said Aunt Agatha. "I'll do all I can for you. Let's see, what is the place called?—'Mind the Step'?"

"'Beck and Call,' aunt," said Ben.

"Of course. How funny I should have said 'Mind the Step.' And yet how natural!" she added, sighing deeply, "for I am always thinking about her. The step! What a tragedy for all of you! How could your father have done it! Well, you will mind her, won't you? They're all hard and all cunning. I know. I've read about them. And deceitful. And they are always saving and stealing, and stealing and saving, for their own children."

"But, dear aunt, you are so wrong about this," said Ben. "Belle is the kindest thing. And she hasn't got any children of her own."

"So she says," was Lady Collum's last dark utterance.

XIV

Whether or no Ben's landlords made a special point of being on the premises at the hour of her arrival I can't say, but certain it is that they were always there to wish her good morning, and an element of rivalry as to which would wish it first was not absent. It is also certain that they esteemed highly the privilege of having such an agreeable tenant.

Every one has a favorite snatch of song, which can be sung unconsciously and bears no relation whatever to the mental status of the singer. This was Jack's, droned to an Irish melody:—

Good morning, O'Reilly,

You are looking well.

Are you the O'Reilly

Who keeps this hotel?

Are you the O'Reilly

They speak of so highly?

Good morning, O'Reilly,

You are looking well.

At quiet intervals all day this ditty reached Ben's ears from the ground floor, until it became the motif of her employment, and she caught herself at all kinds of odd moments murmuring it too. In fact, "Good morning, O'Reilly, you are looking well," was the password between Mr. Harford and herself. Mr. St. Quentin was less frivolous: his humour was of the sardonic variety; but he too had snatches of song, which also passed into Ben's repertory, chief of which was that sweet but mournful Scottish lullaby:—

My Bonnie lies over the ocean,

My Bonnie lies over the sea,

My Bonnie lies over the ocean,

Oh, bring back my Bonnie to me.

As book sellers the two friends seemed to Ben to lack method and even knowledge, but she hesitated to judge them because she knew so little herself, and she could not but be conscious that her own business was an unprofessional affair. In fact, they were all amateurs.

Her suspicions as to her neighbours were first aroused by a visit from Mr. Harford one morning. He was carrying a volume, and his normally careless countenance registered perplexity if not despair.

"Please help me, Miss Staveley," he said. "Patrick's out and I've no notion what this book is worth. It isn't marked. There's a blighter after it downstairs, and he looks as if he might be a dealer himself, in which case it's probably valuable."

"It's no use asking me," said Ben. "You might as well ask your dog."

"But you're so clever," said Mr. Harford. "Tell me how it strikes you as a stranger. Hold it in your hand."

"No," said Ben. "I shan't even guess. Why don't you tell him it was on the shelves by mistake and isn't for sale?"

Mr. Harford looked at her with admiration.

"By Jingo!" he said, "that's brilliant!

You are the O'Reilly

They speak of so highly

and I don't wonder."

On another occasion Mr. St. Quentin was heard laboriously ascending the stairs, impeded by his poor wooden leg. He had begun with a wonderful artificial limb, fitted with springs and other contrivances, but, like so many other mutilated men, had given that up for a simple stump.

"Look here, Miss Staveley," he said, "I'm in a deuce of a fix. There's a poor devil downstairs who's brought in a bundle of books worth ten pounds, and he asks if I'll give ten shillings for them. What am I to do?"

"Behave like a gentleman," said Ben. "I should say, behave like yourself."

"Yes," said Patrick, "I want to. But I'm a book seller as well. I hope I'm not the sort of man to take advantage of ignorance, especially when it's mixed up with destitution; but, after all, business is business and one can't be buyer and seller too."

"I think that's rubbish," said Ben. "Of course you can. Every dealer is, but that's always the excuse. It makes me blush."

Patrick looked at her as though in the hope that he might miss none of the heightened colour when it came.

"All the same," he said, "the other day when I wasn't in, Jack gave a fellow a fiver for a book which was only worth sixpence, owing to some missing pages which he didn't detect."

"I don't see that that has anything to do with the present matter," said Ben. "Surely each transaction is separate."

"Yes," said Patrick, resignedly. "You're right. I'm a swine. How I hate business! None the less," he went on, "this business is only half mine; half is Jack's. I've got to do the best I can for both of us. Of course, I shan't give only a measly ten bob; but the point is, how much more ought I to give?"

"What could you get for the books?" Ben asked.

"They ought to fetch fifteen pounds," said Patrick.

"How soon can you sell them?" Ben asked.

"One never knows," said Patrick. "It might be to-morrow, it might be next year."

"That's rather important," said Ben, automatically using words that she didn't know she possessed; "because it might mean locking up capital. I think you ought to give him something between their value to you if you could sell at once and their value if you have to keep them in stock for a year. Say seven pounds ten."

"Good heavens!" exclaimed Patrick. "You're the Queen of Sheba." And he plodded down again.

"I don't pretend to be able to advise you, Miss Staveley," said Patrick that evening. "I'm not clever enough. But whenever you're in any difficulty, come into the shop and we'll try the 'Sortes Virgilianæ.' It can be very comforting, and it always succeeds."

"Sortes Virgi——" Ben asked. "I suppose that's Latin, and I don't know any. I've had a rotten education."

"Oh, no," said Patrick, "I don't suppose you have. I expect you know lots of things that good classical scholars are utterly ignorant of. You can read and play music at sight, I'm sure?"

Ben admitted it.

"I knew you could. I call that the most miraculous thing in the world—putting one's fingers down on the notes accurately without any practice whatever. I'm sure Porson couldn't do that, even if he did drink ink. Jack can do it too, confound him! It's the one accomplishment I have always longed for, and I could never even whistle. But the 'Sortes Virgilianæ'—that was a game of chance and an appeal for guidance—every copy of Virgil an oracle, you know. It was like this. You were in a hole. Very well, you opened your Virgil at random and you took the first words that caught your eye as an inspired message. But nowadays people don't confine themselves to Virgil: they take any book. Let's try it. What is your perplexity at the moment?"

"Well," said Ben, "I suppose it would have something to do with getting clients, being able to be of any use to them when I did get them, and being able to pay you your rent."

"We'll try," said Patrick, taking a book at random from the shelf behind him, without turning round, and opening it. He looked at the page and laughed. "There you are," he said, pointing to the passage.

The book was "The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám" and the page was that on which was the quatrain containing the line:—

So take the cash and let the credit go.

"But there isn't any cash to take," said Ben.

"No," said Patrick, "but how does it go on?

Nor heed the rumble of a distant drum.

That is the answer of the oracle. In other words, don't worry, take long views and if anyone has to suffer, let it be us and not you."

"But what is the drum?" she asked.

"The drum is Jack and me," said Patrick. "Your horrible, avaricious landlords."

XV

"Someone to see you, Miss Staveley," said Jan, with a flustered face, suddenly opening Ben's door. "I'm sorry," she added quickly and in a lower tone, "but I couldn't do anything else."

"This way, sir," she went on, to someone in the outer office, behind her, and in a moment who should be in the room but Colonel Staveley.

"Father!" exclaimed Ben.

"Well, why not?" replied the Colonel, but he looked anything but at ease. "Mayn't a father visit his daughter?"

"Of course, father, and I'm very pleased to see you. But it's so unexpected. I hope nothing's wrong. Please go on smoking."

"Thank you," said the Colonel, who had been careful not to throw his cigar away, although he had been holding it in such a manner as to suggest that he had done with it, but absent-mindedly had forgotten to drop it. He put it back to his lips with a sigh of relief, sat down and, with a searching eye, looked round at the files of letters and the folios and other signs of business.

"How are you doing?" he asked.

"Not so well," said Ben, "and not so badly. We are making both ends meet so far. But it's very hard work. There's so much to do, seeing people all day, that I never have an evening free. It's then that the real task begins—writing letters, making up the books and all the rest of it. Still I like it more than not, and it's interesting too. One never knows what the next minute may bring. Always something unexpected. You, for example."

"I'm sorry," said her father, bluntly. "I was hoping you might be tired of it and be willing to come back."

"Please don't think of that," said Ben. "I shouldn't do that, whatever happened. There are lots of other things to do if this fails or gets too difficult. But it won't."

"All right," said the Colonel. "Then perhaps you'll look on me not as a father but as a client. Do you say client or customer?"

"Whichever you like," said Ben.

"Client, then," replied the Colonel. "What I want is a cook. Not an ordinary cook, but a damned good cook. You know. A cook who sees that beef is underdone and mutton well done. A cook who sends any meat but the very best back to the butcher. A cook who doesn't stuff apple tarts with cloves and slices of lemon. A cook who keeps time. Belle—Belle is fine, she's splendid, but she doesn't understand."

Ben laughed. "I wonder how bad your cook is," she said. "You know, father, you're not the easiest creature to cater for. And—and does Belle know you're here?"

"Yes," said the Colonel, "I told her."

"All right," said Ben. "I'll do what I can. But, remember, you'll have to pay. Everything's dearer than it used to be. What does the present cook get?"

"I think it's fifty," said her father.

"Well, you'll have to go higher than that, for a good one. Very likely to eighty."

The Colonel groaned. "If I must, I must," he said. "Life isn't worth living as it is."

"I'll send one along," said Ben.

"You're a good girl," said the Colonel. "I'm proud of you."

"Wait just a moment, father," said Ben, as he rose to go. "You haven't given me the address of a milliner yet."

"A milliner? What milliner?" the Colonel inquired.

"Where I am to get a hat," said Ben.

"You are talking in riddles," said the Colonel. "I know nothing of any hat. With a business blooming like this I should say you could get your hats wherever you wished. In Paris even."

"I thought perhaps you had a special shop in mind," said Ben.

"I haven't an idea what you're referring to," said her father.

"Don't you remember?" Ben replied. "You said that if ever you entered my office you would give me a hat."

"Did I? I had forgotten. Of course if I said so, it shall be done. I'll ask Belle about a shop and let you know. What an infernal memory you have!"

Ben was as good as her word, and a new cook arrived at Hyde Park Gardens and gave satisfaction.

It is sometimes amusing to watch disapproval dissolving into esteem, mortification being transformed to pride. Not long after the new kitchen régime was in full swing the Staveleys gave a dinner party, at which the Colonel had on his right hand old Lady Philligree (widow of the famous magnate who had the big place at Moreton-in-the-Marsh). Lady Philligree is known to like her food as much as most people, and, in default of anything else to say to her host, or possibly because the topic came nearest her heart, she commented with intense appreciation on the entrée they were consuming.

"I'm glad you like it," said the Colonel. "The fact is, we have a new cook and she's a treasure. It doesn't do to extol one's own family, but I don't think I am breaking any social law very seriously when I say that I got her through my daughter. Ben, you know. Well, Ben, like so many of these headstrong, foolhardy girls to-day—since the War you know—insisted on breaking away from home and starting a domestic agency. 'The Beck and Call' she calls it. In Motcombe Street; quite close to Knightsbridge. Well, although it is not the best form for fathers to boast, I must say she's wonderful. No sooner did I ask her for a cook than she got me this one. She ought to make a fortune, she's so capable. Clearheaded, cool, with a charming manner, though again I say it as shouldn't. 'The Beck and Call' she calls it. In Motcombe Street, close to Knightsbridge. Over a book shop."

And when, during the latter part of the feast, after half-time, Mrs. Carruthers, on his left, paid a compliment to the savoury (an entente cordiale of chicken's liver and mushroom) the Colonel made practically the same reply to her.

When we are deploring the inconsistency of human nature and the speed with which friend can become foe, let us not forget that, under other circumstances, the transition from adversary to advertising agent can be equally swift and complete.

XVI

Ben brought me occasional reports of her progress and whatever other news there might be; and I looked forward to these visits.

"We've been having the oddest applications," she said. "You have no idea how helpless people can be. They want advice on everything."

"The astonishing thing," I replied, "is that you can give it on such a variety of subjects."

"I don't know that I can," she said, "but I try to. And if one is fairly emphatic, it seems to satisfy them. I suppose decisiveness is very comforting. I see them positively adding an inch or two to their stature when I just say 'Yes' or 'No,' without any qualifications to dilute those excellent words. It's extraordinary how few people seem to have any initiative. And if one can't answer a question oneself," she went on, "one probably knows someone who can. I am requisitioning all my friends. Some day I shall put an awkward client on to you."

"I hope you will," I said.

"It isn't only that they ask ridiculous things," Ben confirmed, "but they so often want something more, for nothing. 'Now that I am here, they say, 'perhaps you could tell me this.' Only to-day a woman who had come about Spanish lessons for her daughter asked me, as she was leaving and had paid, what to do with a cook who stole. I asked her if she could cook well, and when she said 'Yes,' I told her to keep her, even if she stole diamonds and pearls. But it was nothing but odds and ends. 'Odds and ends are replaceable,' I said, 'but a cook isn't. The whole world wants cooks at this moment. Besides,' I said, 'to take odds and ends isn't stealing at all—to a cook. We all have our code, and a cook's code permits her to take odds and ends and smuggle them out of the house, where she would be a pillar of honesty in the midst, say, of money or jewellery.' Every one is dishonest somewhere. My father, I'm sure, is scrupulous in most ways, but he boasts that he always does railway companies if he can. The best parlourmaids take cigarettes. The nicest people pocket matches. If you want to know something about petty purloinings by what are supposed to be the elect, ask the secretary of any women's club. And I'm told that in quite crack men's clubs the nailbrushes have to be chained.

"We have every kind of question and from every nationality," she went on. "A little Japanese woman came in the other day to know how to get lessons in English—at least, not exactly lessons. What she wanted was someone to read English books aloud with her. Not to her; with her. They were to sit side by side so that she could follow the pronunciation. She knew English perfectly, but had some of the words most comically wrong. But how natural! Indeed I don't know how foreigners ever get our words right. This little Japanese pet was completely puzzled by 'July,' for instance. She used the word as if it rhymed with 'truly.' And why not? We say 'duly' and 'unduly' and 'unruly' and 'Julius' and 'Juliet.' And then we say, 'July.' It's too absurd."

"And could you help her?" I asked.

"As it happened, I could. I remembered an old friend of ours who was only too glad to do it, and she has been writing since to thank me for giving her the opportunity of meeting anyone so charming."

"What I want to know," I said, "is how the dickens do you know what to charge?"

"There are several ways," said Ben. "There's a fixed tariff for certain things, and there's so much a quarter of an hour for interviews. For shopping I charge a fee. A time-chart is kept and they pay so much an hour and for cabs. But I don't do that for strangers, or, at any rate, not for anyone without an introduction.

"Most people," she continued, "want either servants or rooms; and I send them on to registry offices or house-agents, and share the commission. I couldn't as a regular thing go into either of those businesses myself. There would be no time left.

"Let me think of some of our recent applications," she said. "Oh, yes! A South African woman came in yesterday to know something about London churches. She was to be here for six months and wanted to take sittings somewhere; could I tell her the best preachers? They must be evangelical or, at any rate, low. Anything in the nature of ritualism she couldn't endure.

"And then," she went on, "there was a widow from Cheltenham who wanted advice about dogs. What was the best kind of dog for a lady living alone? She had noticed that the dogs of most ladies of her own age—that is to say, elderly—were very disobedient; but that would be no use to her. She did not want a dog that had to be led. I said that the most popular dog with elderly ladies at the moment was a Sealyham or West Highland. White, in any case. But I doubted if they were very obedient.

"She asked whether I thought a lady dog or a gentleman dog the more suitable. Really, people are marvellous."

"And how did you charge her?" I asked.

"I didn't. I said that the matter was off my beat, and gave her the address of a dog-fancier.

"She thanked me and went away, and ten minutes later left a box of chocolates and a bunch of flowers.

"Then they want to know the best musical comedy; the name of a play that it would be all right to take auntie to; the place to buy the best linen sheets; whether or not one has to dress in certain restaurants; what time the National Gallery opens; how long a car takes to Hampton Court; how to get Sunday tickets for the Zoo; and where one has the best chance of seeing the Prince of Wales.

"But what most of them want," said Ben, "is what they call a pied-à-terre. You've no idea what hosts of people there are who would be happy if they only had a foot to the earth!—in other words, a week-end cottage. The simplest place in the world, where they can rough it, you know; return to nature, shake the horrible city off! But when we come to particulars there must always be a tennis lawn, hot water laid on, bathroom and so forth. Sometimes they insist on a telephone. I could let twenty of these places a week; and there's nothing so difficult to find! As it is, most of the real country folk, the cottagers proper, have been dispossessed in order that their homes may be converted for week-end purposes.

"Another thing we are always being asked for is a man and his wife. But they are difficult to get, too, because if the man's any good, the wife isn't, and if the wife is capable, the man drinks.

"But most of them," she added, "I don't see at all. Jan or Dolly disposes of them; and of course they don't pay. But we can't be rude to them. And after all, if you call your office, 'The Beck and Call,' you are rather, as Dolly says, 'arstin' for it.' In fact, Dolly wants us to make a charge for everything. He produced some placards the other day, which he had spent all Sunday on, to be hung up. One was for his own desk with:—

LONDON QUESTIONS
ANSWERED TO THE
BEST OF OUR ABILITY
2/6 EACH

on it.

"And one was for Jan:—

GENERAL INFORMATION
GIVEN
2/6 EACH REPLY

"And for my door:—

MISS STAVELEY
INTERVIEWS
AT THE RATE OF 10/6
FOR QUARTER OF AN HOUR
OR LESS

"But I wouldn't let him put them up. 'No,' I said. 'Save them for when you set up in business for yourself.'"

"'Me?' he said. 'Not 'arf. I'm going to be a bookie.' And I expect he is. 'I'd be one now,' he said, 'if I had any capital. That's all you want—a little capital to begin with. The rest is like shelling peas.'"

"'But in that case why are you here?' I asked him. 'Oughtn't you to be in a bookmaker's office?'"

"'I dare say I ought,' he said. 'But I prefer this job at the time.'"

"'Why?' I asked."

"'Because, to tell you the brutal truth, miss,' he replied, 'I like you.'"

XVII

"No," said the girl. "I don't think anyone would do but Miss Staveley herself."

She was a pretty girl, somewhere in the last teens, but at the moment she was flushed and nervous and looked tired out.

"Do you know her personally?" asked the loyal and wary Jan.

"I could hardly say 'know,'" replied the girl, "but we met at a dinner-party once. At Lady Toulmin's. Perhaps you would tell her?"

"You are quite sure it is nothing that I could do?" Jan inquired.

"Quite," said the girl.

"But Miss Staveley is very busy," Jan persisted. "We haven't got through the letters yet. Indeed, we're not really open. You must let me know what you want to see her about."

"I'm sorry," said the girl, "but that's impossible. Do please give her this card"; and Jan succumbed.

Ben, in her fortress, examined the card. "Miss Viola Marquand," she read. "What is she like?" she asked.

"Very young," said Jan. "And very pretty. Says she met you at dinner once at Lady Toulmin's. Her furs cost a hundred if they cost a penny. One of those gold mesh bags. No rouge, though. She seems excited and worried."

"And she won't say what she wants?"

"No," said Jan. "Not to me. Not to underlings. The boss or nothing."

"Well," said Ben, "show her in; but keep an eye on the time. She oughtn't to be here more than ten minutes. Interrupt us then."

Miss Marquand entered shyly. "It's very kind of you to see me," she said, "and I have no right to bother you like this; but I'm in great trouble and I remembered how much I liked you the only time we met. Do you remember?"

"Yes," said Ben. "I remember now."

"And I was hearing that you had opened an advice bureau, and so I have made so bold as to come to you, because no one wants advice—help, rather—more than I do."

"Well," said Ben, "tell me."

"It's very simple," said the girl. "I have got to pay two hundred pounds and I haven't a penny."

"Bridge?" Ben asked.

"Poker," said the girl. "I can hold my own fairly well at bridge, but poker is too much for me. I've done with it. Can you tell me what to do? I'm at my wits' end, Miss Staveley. It's terrible."

"You poor thing," said Ben. "But, you know, this isn't my line at all. I'm here for ordinary cases, such as finding houses and chauffeurs and all that kind of thing. This isn't my line at all. Have you no one at home to confide in?"

"Oh, no," said the girl quickly. "No one. That would be impossible."

"Your father?"

"My father!" the girl exclaimed, with dilating eyes. Then she laughed. "You don't know my father."

"But surely you must have friends?"

"I don't seem to have any friends quite of that sort," said the girl. "There are plenty of people I know, but some I wouldn't ask a favour of for the world, and the others either wouldn't have any money or wouldn't lend it. I've been going over their names again and again and they all seem wrong."

"Isn't there the family lawyer?" Ben asked. "He wouldn't give you away, even if he wasn't too sympathetic. And it's part of his business to raise money."

"The family lawyer!" the girl exclaimed, almost angrily. "You don't suppose I should bother you if I could go to him? Oh, forgive me if I sounded sharp," she said. "But I'm all out. I never slept a wink last night. But of course I couldn't go to him—he and father are much too thick. And if father knew of this, I don't know what would happen. You see it happened once before. Not so badly, but badly enough."

"Ah!" said Ben. "And you gave a promise?"

"Yes," the girl admitted. "And I meant to keep it. But this time I swear I will. What I want you to do," she went on, "is to be so kind as to tell me how money is raised. Couldn't I borrow it?"

"I'm sure you could," said Ben. "But the rate of interest would be very high, and how about paying it back?"

"Yes," said the girl, ruefully. "That's just it. I thought of that."

"And you'd have to give some security," said Ben.

"Yes," said the girl. "I thought of that too. Everything's against me."

"What about selling some jewellery? Or better still," Ben asked, "that mesh bag?"

"It would be noticed at once," said the girl. "No, I've thought of all those obvious things. And if I were to pawn, I should still have to find the money to redeem. No, it was because I had come to the end of thinking that I came to you. If you can't help me I—well, I don't know what."

She looked utterly broken.

"Well, I must think about it," said Ben, at last. "Give me till to-morrow morning and come then. But, remember, as I said, this isn't my real work, and if I am useless you mustn't grumble. Some things are too difficult."

"How kind you are!" said the girl. "I oughtn't to have worried you about it. I can see that now. But I was in such a mess. Good-bye till to-morrow, and if you can't do anything, you can't, and I must—— Well, I don't know what I must do."

XVIII

Ben, left alone, thought, she tells me (to my great pride) first of me. But I was abroad and without an address. It was a matter, she felt, that must be discussed with a third person. And it was complicated by the girl having already given a promise.

By lunch-time she seemed no nearer any course of action, but on her way through the shop suddenly remembered Patrick's oracle.

"What was that way of getting guidance called?" she asked him. "When you told me not to bother about ever paying my rent?"

"Was it as definite as that?" he asked. "I'd forgotten." He laughed. "The 'Sortes Virgilianæ,'" he went on. "Every one his own diviner. If you're in a difficulty, try it again. Take any book at random and read where it opens."

Ben put out her hand and found that it had alighted upon "Coleridge's Poems."

"Now open it and glance quickly," said Patrick.

Opening it, Ben's eyes came instantly upon "The Ancient Mariner."

"Do I have to read the whole page?" she asked.

"No," said Patrick. "The title is enough. Isn't it helpful?"

"I don't see how," said Ben, and she left the shop.

"It's never failed yet," he called after her. "Either up or down, it's bound to work."

At intervals during the rest of the day Ben repeated the words "ancient mariner," "ancient mariner," "venerable salt," "antique navigator," "senile sailor." Nothing suggested anything. Perhaps, she thought, it means the sea. But what could the sea do for Miss Marquand? She couldn't—no, impossible—have meant to suggest committing suicide; and certainly she was not going to run away: that was not a solution to this kind of problem. Facing the music here.

Ancient mariner, ancient mariner.... Ben racked her brains to think of any elderly naval men that she might know. There was her father's friend, the Admiral, old Sir Albert Ross; but he was dead. Nor had he possessed a very sympathetic or understanding mind. The quarter-deck manner. "Damn it," he would have said, "you've got to take your punishment. People who play cards for stakes they can't afford get no pity from me." Well, the Admiral was dead, anyway.

Ancient mariner, ancient mariner. What was the next thing to a real mariner? Why, a longshoreman, a boatman on the river. And the next thing to the real sea? The Thames. Ought she to go down to the docks and see what happened there? But why the Thames? Why not a lake? There were boats on the Serpentine, close by, and this was a lovely evening and the attendants would certainly be there and one of them might be old. In fact they were sure to be old. And in conversation something useful might occur.

Ben was on her way to the Serpentine when she thought of the Round Pond, and in a second Coleridge's meaning flashed upon her. Of course. Why hadn't she thought of it at once? Uncle Paul. Uncle Paul was the only ancient mariner in her acquaintance: Uncle Paul with his toy boats, and, even more, Uncle Paul with his kind old heart and wise if simple old head. She would go to see him directly after dinner. Of course!

Uncle Paul, if he had known of Ben's approach, could not have been employed more suitably, both for her and for Coleridge, for he was rigging a ship. A three-masted schooner. And he looked quite old enough to be called ancient.

"Well, my dear," he said. "How nice of you to call!"

He moved away from the model and fetched the cigarettes.

"Please don't stop, Uncle Paul," said Ben. "I shall be much happier if you go on with your work. In fact, you must. And it isn't nice of me to call, really. Because I've come for advice. To bother you."

"Don't apologize for that," he said. "People like to be asked for advice. It's flattering."

Ben told him the whole story—without names—while his busy fingers were deftly binding spars and threading cordage through tiny blocks.

"And she struck you as being all right?" he asked at the end. "You felt the thing to be genuine? She really seemed to mean it when she said that this time it really was the end of her gambling?"

"Absolutely," said Ben.

"She must be helped," said Uncle Paul, and he went to his desk and wrote a cheque for two hundred pounds made out to his niece. "Give her this. But see that she pays it back to you, no matter in how small instalments, beginning with her next allowance. I'm afraid she must deny herself a lot of little luxuries; but that will be good for her. Yes," he said, "she ought to go without all kinds of things she's used to. But you'll talk to her like a mother and tell her so, of course."

"A mother!" Ben exclaimed. "Why, I'm not more than three years older."

"Age has nothing to do with it," said Uncle Paul.

"You are the sweetest thing," said Ben, as she folded the cheque and put it in her bag. And she hurried home.

"Well," said Patrick, putting his head in at Ben's door the next afternoon, "did it work?"

"To perfection," said Ben.

"It's a wonderful method," said Patrick.

"I prefer it to all others," said Ben. "And, by the way, I've got a new assistant. A Miss Marquand. We're getting on, you see."

XIX

Miss Marquand had only been working at "The Beck and Call" for a week or so when Toby, Ben's youngest brother, paid his sister a visit.

"How nice to see you," said Ben, "but I hope you haven't come, like all the others, to reproach me for opening the place."

"Not me," said Toby. "I'm all for it. I want you to be in business and make money, because then I can borrow from you."

"My dear," said Ben, "are you broke again?"

"Absolutely," said her brother. "But have they really been pitching into you?"

"All of them but Uncle Paul," said Ben. "Even Aunt Agatha, but of course she doesn't count."

"Alicia, I suppose, wanted you to join her in Hove?" Toby inquired.

"Yes," said Ben, with surprise. "But how could you know?"

"I guessed it," said Toby. "I'm not such a fool as I look."

"I didn't know you were so clever," said Ben. "Did you also guess that poor Bertrand is alive?"

"Alive? What on earth do you mean?" Toby asked.

"I don't mean anything on earth," said Ben. "That's just it. Alicia's taken to spiritualism and she communicates with him every day."

Toby whistled. "That's topping," he said. "They ought to know everything up there: I wonder if I could get her to ask him for a winner."

"My dear boy," said Ben, "are you betting again?"

"Only now and then," he said. "And I have such rotten luck. It would pay owners to make me an allowance to keep off their horses. But what I came about," he went on, "is what is called my future. I wish you'd talk to the governor about it. He's dead set on my going into Uncle Arthur's office when I come down; but that means all kinds of restrictions. And how am I to keep up my cricket? I want to play seriously for a few seasons; they've got me down for Middlesex. I can see now that I've been rather an ass not working harder. I might have got a job then as a Sports Master at some big school, but even a Sports Master, it seems, must know something. There's always a catch somewhere. So far as the winter goes, I'm not so hopeless, because you can get jobs now as Master of Ceremonies at the Swiss hotels—to arrange dancing and ice competitions. I know two or three men who do that and have a topping time."

It was at this moment that the door of Ben's room opened and Miss Marquand's head appeared round it.

What else may be the answer to the poet's question, "Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?" it is not Toby. For that had always been his only way, and it happened again at that moment.

"Good Heavens!" he exclaimed when the door had closed again. "Who's that?"

"That's one of my assistants," said Ben; "and you will oblige me by not taking her out to lunch more than you can help, because we're busy. Also, you can't afford it. Also, she may be already engaged."

"But she's beautiful," said Toby. "She's terrific. What's her name?"

"Her name is Viola Marquand," said Ben.

"Viola Marquand! Great Scott! Why, I know her brother. He's at New. She isn't engaged, or if she is, he doesn't know it."

"Why should he?" Ben asked. "You don't know all that I do."

"He's told me about her," said Toby. "He said I should fall for her and I have. Do ask her to come in again about something."

"Not unless you make a promise," said Ben.

"Well?" Toby asked.

"And keep it?" Ben said.

"Naturally," Toby replied. "If it isn't too difficult."

"Not to have another bet this year," said Ben.

"Oh, I say!" said Toby. "That's a bit thick."

"I mean it," said Ben.

Toby knitted his fresh and candid brows.

"I may go in for a Derby sweep or two?" he asked.

"Yes," said Ben. "I'll allow that. But no betting. Promise?"

Toby promised and Ben rang her bell twice.

The door opened again and Miss Marquand's piquant little face again appeared.

"Oh, Miss Marquand," said Ben, "please come in. This is my brother Toby, and if you have a minute will you let him see the morning paper. He is interested in racing and wants to look at to-day's runners."

"My hat!" Toby gasped. "Ben, you're the limit." But his eyes were on Miss Marquand, and if ever a second sight corroborated the judgment of the first, it was then.

The introductions being completed, Ben relented. "Never mind about the paper," she said. "I was only joking." Toby groaned.

"But," she went on, "what my brother really wants is to consult the 'Scholastic Register.' Will you let him see it?"

And the young people left together.

XX

Tommy Clinton arriving as usual from Madeira in May, paid an early visit to "The Beck and Call," dallying awhile at the book shop, to whose allurements had now been added a few water-colours; and for water-colours Tommy had ever had a weakness. Indeed, he played a little with a paint-box himself.

"What on earth made you start this kind of thing?" he asked Ben, when their first greetings were over.

"Why not?" she countered. "I couldn't be idle. It's rather fun too."

"I suppose you've got some kind of a lease?" Tommy asked. "You're bound to let the experiment run a certain time?"

"Of course," said Ben. "I shouldn't drop it unless I had to."

Tommy was silent. These hostages to fortune did not suit him in the least.

"Is the fellow downstairs your landlord?" he asked.

"I take this floor from the book shop, if that's what you mean," said Ben, smiling at Tommy's transparency. "Did you go in there?"

"I just looked round," he said. "I didn't speak to anyone. Conceited-looking chap, I thought, and singing too; something about O'Reilly. I can't stand shopkeepers who don't look like it, and sing. Shopkeepers should wear black, and rub their hands. This fellow's in tweeds with a blue collar."

"That's Mr. Harford," said Ben. "His partner, Mr. St. Quentin, would have pleased you more: he's only got one leg. They were at Oxford together and then in the War."

"You seem to know all about them," said Tommy, with some bitterness. "Are they married?"

"Oh, no," said Ben.

"Are they engaged?" Tommy pursued.

"If you mean, Are they engaged to me? No," said Ben.

"Neither of them?" he asked.

"Neither or both," she replied. "You seem to have missed your vocation," she added, laughing. "You ought to have been a cross-examiner. In fact, I believe you are—very cross."

"I'm frightfully sorry," said Tommy; "but it's awfully disappointing coming back and finding you locked up in an office. I was counting on seeing such a lot of you, and now you say you've only got Saturday afternoons."

"We must make the most of those," she said.

It was on their way back from a country walk that Tommy took Ben's hand and repeated his annual question.

"What about it?" he said.

"About what?" Ben asked, with an affectation of ignorance which was not really intended to deceive him.

"'You 'eard,'" he quoted.

She disengaged her hand and laughed her soft laugh.

"I can't think why you're so horrid to me," he said. "What's the matter with me?"

"Nothing, Tommy," she said. "I like you very much. I always have liked you. But I don't want to marry you."

"Don't you want to marry anyone?" he asked.

"No one that I've yet seen," she replied.

"Not either of those book-selling fellows?" he asked.

"Certainly not," she said.

"But you must marry," said Tommy, very earnestly. "Of course you must. It isn't right not to. What's the matter with me, anyway? We've always been good friends; I'm not too poor; I hope I've got something better than the kind of face that only a mother can love. I've got two legs. Why are you so down on me?"

"My dear boy, I'm not," said Ben. "I have always liked you and I always shall like you, but marriage is so different. Please don't ask me any more, there's a dear, Tommy."

She had said "Certainly not" with some firmness to Tommy's question about her landlords; but was it true? She pondered on the matter that night as she lay awake. Was she so insensitive to them? Would she absolutely turn down a proposal from either? And if she had a preference for one, which was it? Mr. Harford, so quick and gay and handsome and clean cut and impulsive, or Mr. St. Quentin, so quiet and amusing and lonely and in need of care? But whosoever she married, if she married at all—and why should she, for her life was very full of interest; this "Beck and Call" affair was very absorbing and it had got to be made a success; and marriage seemed so often to be the end of girls; look at poor Enid Stuart, what a wreck of a life that used to be such a lark; look at poor Daisy Forsiter, all her jolliness gone since she married that selfish young Greg—time enough to think of marriage two or three years hence when she was tired of being so busy.

So her thoughts ran.

Poor Tommy! Whosoever she married, if she married at all, would have to have more variety than that, be more of a companion. If she married at all. Someone who did everything with an air, with a natural commanding address, like, well, Jack Harford was rather like that—"Good morning, O'Reilly, you are looking well"—someone who had humour and sagacity and was in need of mothering a little like—well, Pat St. Quentin was not unlike that—"My bonnie lies over the sea." But there were plenty of other men, too, if she really wanted one, and it was ridiculous to allow such a trifling business accident as renting an upper floor from two young men to make these two young men the inevitable two from which she had to choose a partner for life. What rubbish!

XXI

Ben chanced to be in the front office one morning when two children came in: a boy and a girl. They looked about twelve and ten.

"Well?" she asked.

"We came in," said the boy, "because we've got a domestic problem and we thought you would help. We saw the sign."

"Of course I will," said Ben. "If I can. Is it very difficult?"

"It is rather," said the little girl. "It's Dad's and Mum's birthday to-morrow and we don't know what to give them."

"But surely," said Ben, "they don't both have their birthday on the same day?"

"Yes, they do," said the boy. "It's extraordinary, but they do."

"I think it's perhaps why they married each other," said the little girl.

"It's the most amazing coincidence I ever heard of," said Ben. "Are you sure they're not pretending?"

"Quite sure," said the boy. "Dad and Mum never pretend. And I don't think anybody would pretend a thing like that, because it doesn't really do them any good. You see it—it puts such a strain on our pocket-money—Eva's and mine—to have their birthdays come both together like this."

"The worst thing of all," said Eva, "is to have a birthday on Christmas day. Every one knows that."

"When is your birthday?" Ben asked.

"On Christmas Day," said Eva.

"What a marvellous family!" exclaimed Ben. "And when is yours?" she asked the boy. "On February 29th, I suppose?"

"Yes," he said, "on February 29th. I only have a birthday once in four years. I mean a real one. Of course, as a matter of fact, people are very lenient."

"More and more remarkable!" exclaimed Ben. "I never heard anything like it. And are you the only children?"

"Yes," said Eva.

"Before I can help you," said Ben, "I must know how much money you've got."

"We've got five shillings each," said the boy. "But of course we can't spend all that on the present because we must give some to you. Mustn't we?"

"Why?" Ben asked.

"It says so on the signboard," said the boy. "'Terms moderate.' Terms mean we must pay, don't they?"

"Not in every case," said Ben. "Not in this case. Any advice I can give to you is free, because I'm so sorry about your birthdays. But I can't advise until I know everything, so you must tell me. First about your mother. Tell me all about her tastes. Is she fond of reading?"

"Yes," said Eva.

"New books or old?"

"New books," said Eva. "They come from the library. French books too."

"Is she fond of flowers?"

"Yes," said Eva, "she likes tulips."

"And has she any favourite colours?"

"A kind of purply pink," said Eva, after consideration.

"No," said Eric, firmly; "yellow. All the French books are yellow, and that proves it."

"Does she write a lot of letters?" Ben asked.

"Not many," Eva thought.

"Does she play and sing?"

"Oh, yes, she loves music," said Eva.

"And now for your father," said Ben. "Is he old?"

"Yes, very old," said Eva.

"How old?"

"Well, quite twenty-eight," said Eva.

"He's much older than that," said Eric; "he's going to be thirty-five; he said so this morning."

"And what is he fond of?" asked Ben. "Is he fond of golf?"

"He plays golf," said the boy, "but he's chiefly fond of fishing. He's always going off to fish at a place called Stockbridge."

"What is his favourite food?" Ben asked.

After a good deal of difference of opinion and some heat, it was decided that their father was most addicted to eggs, of which he ate two every morning boiled for four minutes.

"And do you want to join in these presents?" Ben asked, "and give each of them one that costs five shillings, or do you want to be independent?"

This led to more debate and more heat, and it was at last settled that they would rather not unite but would deal separately with their parents.

"Very well," said Ben, "this is what I suggest. That one of you should give your father a little old book on fishing which we will get downstairs, and the other should give him two very pretty china egg-cups. And one should give your mother a box of purple sealing-wax for her letters (which is a good kind of present because very likely she'll let you help with the sealing), and the other should give her a little bottle of the best lavender water. And I'm very glad you called to ask me. Where do you live?"

"Close by, in Eaton Square," said the boy. "We pass here every day and we've always wanted to come in, but we've never had a real domestic problem before."

"And what do you collect?" Ben asked. "Because every boy collects something, doesn't he?"

"Motor-cars," said Eric.

"Motor-cars!" Ben exclaimed.

"He doesn't mean the cars themselves," said Eva. "Really, Eric, you are so silly! What he means is, he writes down in a book the numbers of all the cars he sees and the names of the makers of all he knows. I wish he wouldn't," she added, sadly; "it makes our walks so dreary for me."

"It's the only thing that makes walks possible," said Eric.

They started to go out. At the door the boy stopped. "Are you sure we oughtn't to pay you something?" he asked.

"Quite," said Ben.

"I think you're a wonderful adviser," said Eva.

XXII

"You must pardon me for intruding without any real business reason," said the pretty woman, "but I want to apologize for my children worrying you the other day. About birthday presents."

"Oh, yes," said Ben. "They were yours, then?"

"Yes," said her visitor, "but they had no right to take up your time like that."

"I was delighted that they did," said Ben. "Children are very rare in this business. It's a very pleasant change after the usual run of clients. And I thought it very clever of them to think of coming to me at all. Very few children would be so original."

"My name is Hill-Owen, and we live just round the corner in Eaton Square," said the visitor. "And since I am here, I wonder if you would give me advice as to my cook. She's young and very pretty, and she cooks very well, but she's terribly attractive to Guardsmen. I suppose good cooks are as difficult to find as ever?"

"More so," said Ben. "It's not part of my business. This isn't a registry office. But from the inquiries I get, I should say that the world's greatest need at this moment is cooks."

"Then you agree with my husband," said Mrs. Hill-Owen, "who says, 'Never mind about the Guardsmen so long as dinner is all right'?"

"I should take some precautions," said Ben. "I don't think Guardsmen ought to be there after ten, say."

"Guardsmen are very difficult to dislodge," said Mrs. Hill-Owen, "and I'm afraid to go down and interfere, she's so touchy. She might give notice. It's the worst of this Knightsbridge district. I thought of a wonderful plan the other day, and that was to make her bring the key of the basement door up at ten every night; but as my husband said, 'How can you tell she's locked it?' It's really a terrible responsibility. And we're away so much too. What would you do?"

"I?" said Ben. "I should do my best to forget."

"Would you? How clever of you! Thank you so much. I'll try to."

This was one of Ben's odd days.

Mrs. Hill-Owen (she told me) had not been gone more than a few minutes when a Rolls Royce purred up to the door of "The Booklovers' Rest," and a richly dressed young woman emerged and made her way upwards to "The Beck and Call."

Ben, chancing to be in the front office, received her in person, and asked her requirements.

"I want," said the girl, "an engagement as parlour-maid."

"You want?" Ben exclaimed. "But for someone else, of course."

"Oh, no," said the girl. "For myself. I want to go into service."

"Come inside," said Ben. "I must get this clear. You want," she said, when they were seated, "a situation as a parlour-maid?"

"Yes," said the girl. "But it must be in a really good house—a nobleman's for choice."

Ben's surprise led the girl to be confidential.

"I ought to explain," she said, "especially as I've had no experience of anything but helping mother at home. The fact is dad has suddenly become rich—enormously rich—and everything has changed. We used to live in a little house in Ealing, but now dad's bought one of those great places on Kingston Hill. He's happy enough, pottering about the garden, but it's very lonely for mother and me, because many of our old friends have disappeared—frightened, I suppose—and we can't make new ones of the new kind because—well, we're not easy with them. We don't know how to behave or what to say. They've called, you see. So I thought it would be a wonderful thing if I took service in a good family and kept my eyes open. I'm very quick; I should soon pick it up; and someone was saying that 'The Beck and Call' was the best place to come to with any inquiry, so I came. What do you think, miss?"

"You would have to keep your secret," said Ben.

"Oh, yes, of course," the girl replied.

"You'd have to leave that car behind."

"I shall love to," said the girl. "It's largely because of the chauffeur that I want to learn. He's so superior. Mother and dad, of course, will never be able to deal with servants, but I feel that after a little while I shall know enough to keep them in their place. And of course when I'm through we shall have new ones, and so start fair."

"Well," said Ben, "I think it's a most original plan. The principal difficulty is the noblemen. They're all so poor now that they probably do their own parlour-maiding. I know one personally who describes himself as the 'Gentleman with a duster,' and one of the most famous of our dukes boasts that he cleans the windows. You would take the lowest wages, of course?"

"Oh, yes," said the girl; "or none at all."

"No," said Ben, "that would be very foolish. Never do that. You would be suspected at once; and if the other servants found out they would be impossible to you. By the way, had you thought of the other servants?"

"Oh, yes."

"The footman?"

"Yes. But I've got to go through with it, and I'm very quick. You don't think it's unfair to the people who engage me to use them in this way?"

"No, I don't think so. All life is a lesson, and this is quite funny. But the real joke will come when you meet them later on, on level terms."

"Oh," said the girl, "how terrible! I never thought of that. I must—I must think a little more about it," she added, "and talk to mother."

She went off, and Ben watched the chauffeur's face as she got into the car. It certainly had an expression that needed very drastic treatment.

XXIII

"I don't want to be inquisitive or interfering," said Ben to Viola Marquand, "but I think we ought to be frank with each other about Toby. I'm afraid that that engagement ring is his?"

Viola looked a little confused, but admitted it.

"And what are your plans?" Ben asked. "How long are you prepared to wait for him, and what do you propose to live on? Don't mind those questions, but I feel rather responsible for both of you. I'm all the mother that Toby's got, and to some extent I am in charge of you as well, aren't I? Besides, I suppose I might be said to have thrown you together."

"Of course I don't mind," said Viola. "You've been far too kind. I like Toby tremendously. I don't say I was anxious to be engaged, but he was miserable till I said yes."

"I'm sure he was," said Ben. "He specializes in misery over delays. But what do you think he can do? And what will your people say?"

Viola became very grave. "Yes," she said, "what, indeed? They are sufficiently cross that I am here doing work; but that I don't mind. Girls have to expect that. I dare say you had some trouble yourself?"

Ben smiled. "Just at first," she said. "But fathers soon forget. They've got other things to think about."

"Mine doesn't seem to have," said Viola. "He's bent on my marrying someone rich, and he's afraid that working here may prejudice rich men against me."

"That's absurd," said Ben. "Men who want to marry pretty girls can't be prejudiced against them by anything; that is if they really want to marry them. People do what they want. Don't you agree?"

"Yes," said Viola, "I think I do. But it wouldn't convince father. Father hasn't much imagination, I'm afraid, and when he gets an idea he sticks to it."

"And your mother?" Ben asked.

"Mother does what she's told," said Viola. "Poor mother! We shan't all grow like that, I hope."

"Not if you marry Toby," said Ben. "Toby may be capricious and rather tiresome, but he'll never dictate. Toby's idea of marriage is to be deliciously, luxuriously enslaved. But if I were you I shouldn't wear that ring. He's too young. If you take my advice—and I don't think you are so deeply in love as to refuse to—you will give it back to him and say that you will wait a year before you ask for it again, if then."

"But it will break the poor child's heart," said Viola.

"Not more than is good for him—and for both of you," said Ben. "Think it over, anyway. If you made it a condition that he was earning enough money for both of you—or was in the way to do so—it would be all to the good. His whole tendency is to take things too easily, which wouldn't matter so much if he wasn't engaged. But, being engaged, he must work."

"It sounds frightfully sensible," said Viola. "And not at all like me."

"Well, your father would say the same," said Ben, "and very definitely too. It's inevitable if you admit the engagement. How much better for you to suggest it amicably!"

"I'll try," said Viola. "But it's rather rough luck."

She drew the ring slowly off her finger and looked wistfully at the mark it had left.

"You really are fond of him?" Ben asked.

"I think so," said Viola.

"It's so difficult," said Ben, in one of the worst sentences ever constructed, "for sisters to understand anyone losing their heads over their brothers."

XXIV

It was early in June that I had an urgent call from Ben asking if I would help her. A Canadian woman had been in to say that her husband, who was an invalid, had one mastering wish, and that was to hear the nightingale again before he returned home, probably for ever. Ben knew nothing of nightingales; but she wanted to oblige, and would I take the affair in hand?—my acquaintance with those birds being (I assume) notorious.

I agreed.

Mr. Measure was rather a tragic figure. A wealthy Canadian of cultured tastes, he had been stricken when only in the fifties, and this was a last visit to Europe to see once again the beautiful things that he knew so well and would regret so keenly. For "Dying," as he said to me, "would be nothing if were it not for what we leave behind."

They had been to Florence, to Siena, to Perugia, to Venice, to Rome, to little quiet places among the Italian hills that had old associations, to Chamounix again, to Avignon and Arles, to Puy-de-Dôme. In a day or so they were to sail for Quebec, where his home was and where his grave would be.

He had but one wish left as regarded his English visit, and that was to hear the nightingale. It had suddenly come to him as he read in a paper some reference to their season of song—he had had the idea that it was earlier and now finished—and his wife had chanced upon Ben's signboard and had asked for information there: as it happened, very fortunately.

I called at their hotel to discuss our plan of action. Mr. Measure, poor fellow, was clearly very ill; he was thin and weak, but his eye was bright and he was full of enthusiasm for the adventure. He did not want to sleep in a country inn, but did not mind how late he returned to London. Would I mind driving in a motor ambulance with himself and his wife?

Not at all.

His idea was that we should leave London after a very early dinner and go straight to a likely spot, hear the nightingale, and drive back. If we heard one sooner, so much the better.

"I know of a practically certain place," I said, "but it is a little late. A fortnight ago would have been better. Remember, I can't promise."

It was a favourable evening on which we slid away from Mr. Measure's hotel. I had my mind on a particular meadow in Sussex, just north of the Downs, skirted by a lane. This meadow is surrounded by a high, untrimmed hedge with oaks at intervals, and there is a tinkling stream close by. A few cottages here and there in the neighbourhood complete the nightingales' requirements, for they are fond of human sounds. In this meadow, which has never disappointed me yet—at any rate in late April and all May—nightingales have the enchanting habit of singing in threes, one against the other at the points of the triangle.

Knowing by bitter experience how useless it is to squander minute directions on such insensitive, non-receptive, unobservant, and unremembering creatures as chauffeurs, I sat on the box; not sorry either, for it was warm, and talking in a car is fatiguing.

We left London by way of Battersea Bridge and kept on the Brighton road as far as Hand Cross—over Walton Heath and down Reigate Hill and through Crawley. At Hand Cross we branched to the right, leaving Cuckfield on our left, and came through Bolney to Albourne and due south as far as Muddles Wood cross-roads. At intervals I had fancied I heard the magic notes and had slackened the car—you know how easy it is to imagine this sound—but always it was a false alarm, or the song had been only of momentary duration.

At Muddles Wood we turned to the right. The air was warm and there was no wind, only a sighing of the earth. The moon was now bright and the great bulk of the South Downs, sweetly undulating, rose against the quiet sky. We crept slowly along for a quarter of a mile and then dipped sharp to the left for fifty yards and stopped. This was the spot.

For a while there was not a sound, save now and then a rustle in the undergrowth, the whistle of a far-distant train, a car on the Henfield road, an owl's hoot, or a dog barking.

I had begun to be assured of the worst when there came a liquid note. Then silence again; and then suddenly a burst of song. It was very brief, and there was again a disconcerting silence; but then another singer replied, and gradually their songs grew more steady. They behaved like angels; they went through everything in the repertory, and although their voices were not in the perfection of mid-May, they were beautiful enough, and one of them repeated that plaintive single cry seventeen times.

Even the chauffeur was impressed. He had heard about nightingales all his life, but this was his first experience of them. Like a canary, wasn't it?

I did not intrude upon the sick man until the time came to go. He was in an ecstasy and I wished that Ben could see him. It would have been a triumph for "The Beck and Call."

"But I should call that song a happy one," he said. "Certainly not melancholy, except very rarely. Its charm is its volume and exultation, and the careless ease of it."

I agreed. "I am against Matthew Arnold here," I said. "To me the truest line about the bird in our poetry is in William Cory:—

Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake.

That's what they are: pleasant voices, triumphantly 'telling the world.'"

"Even Keats," he said, "makes the song a little too voluptuous and passionate, although how true to say that the nightingale 'among the leaves' has never known

The weariness, the fever, and the fret!"

He paused, and then repeated, almost in a whisper, the lines:—

Now more than ever it seems rich to die,

To cease upon the midnight with no pain,

While thou art pouring forth thy soul aloud

In such an ecstasy!

To me, though he was but a stranger, these lines, as he murmured them, were, since I knew his secret, infinitely pathetic; to his poor wife they must have meant anguish.

The next morning I called at the hotel to see how Mr. Measure was and to bid him good-bye. He re-expressed his gratitude for the night's entertainment, and said he should die with that music in his ears. I reproved him for talking of dying soon with such certainty.

"Dying men," he said, "can prepare for death with more courage, composure, and acceptance than those who watch them, and I have no doubt that you are sorrier for me than I am for myself. Not that I want to die, but I know I must. I won't be insincere about it. I know I am going to die very shortly after reaching home, because I have the means of death always with me. I know that my trouble is incurable and that it is getting worse. Would you have me a burden on those around me? My mind, as I grow weaker, will be less clear, less trustworthy; would you cherish decay?"

I had no rebutting argument to set up.

"I have always," he went on, "dreaded this disease, and when I was hale and strong I prepared accordingly. I have no fears; any postponement is due to the fact that I want to see my lawyer again and be at home. Otherwise I should take a dose to-day.

"The greatest drawback to suicide," he continued, with a whimsical smile, "is not want of decision, but a dislike of giving trouble. If I were to commit suicide now, it would have to be done in a hotel, and that isn't fair to the hotel. Nor should I care to be found lying in a field: that would mean a shock to someone and too much newspaper squalor after. Also a public mortuary. In any well-organized State there would, of course, be a great pool of quicklime into which, after taking poison, we could roll; but lacking that we must behave ourselves as best we can. By waiting till I get to Canada, I can complete my will, fold my arms, and die like a gentleman in bed."

"While admiring," I replied, "your determination and nice taste, I would remind you that next spring the nightingales will be singing again. You might still be alive and well enough to hear them."

"I refuse," he said, "to linger on, a wreck."

And so passed Mr. Adrian Measure from my life.

XXV

"Dear Miss Staveley," ran the note which Ben found on her desk, "will you do me the divine favour of coming to the theatre with me this evening? If so, name your play, and I will fetch you at your rooms at 7.5, and we will dine first. I do so hope you are free and that the notion likes you."

"Yours sincerely,
"John Harford"

Ben accepted.

It was a very smart Mr. Harford who drove up to Aubrey Walk that evening and carried her off to dinner. The tweeds had given place to superlative dress clothes and a white waistcoat; and there was no dog.

He went upstairs for a moment to be introduced to Melanie, who had insisted on this ceremony. "And later," she had said, "I want to see the other one too."

"Why?" Ben asked.

"Just curiosity," said Melanie. "It is always interesting to see the men who fall in love with one's friends. And these two seem to be so different that it is more interesting than ever. Why don't you marry both?"

"Have I ever given you any reason to suppose I should marry either?" Ben asked.

"Plenty," said Melanie.

"How ridiculous you are!" said Ben. She was really rather annoyed. "I am so tired of this notion that men and women who are friendly must be going to marry."

"It is doubtful, however," said Melanie, "if any weariness on your part will lessen the popularity of union between the sexes."

"Oh, Melanie, shut up!" said Ben. "How tired I am also of that word 'sexes'!"

"None the less, old dear," said Melanie, "there it is, and it's come to stay. And to a large extent that's why I've got to eat my dinner alone this evening."

"Again I say, shut up!" said Ben.

"How extraordinarily different you and Miss Ames are!" said Jack, as the cab started. "And yet she's very nice too. But she's so detached, so cool, so ironical."

"She's a very close observer under it all," said Ben.

"I'm rather scared of her," said Jack.

"What becomes of Soul when you go out in the evening?" Ben asked.

"He mopes," said Jack. "I've got an excellent landlady, who does her best to keep him happy, but he has no life away from me really. Sometimes when I walk and go to the pit, I take him to the theatre and leave him with friendly commissionaires; but it isn't a kindness because, as I can't give him any notion of how long I shall be, he spends the time in searching the appearance of every passer-by. Considering how near the ground his eyes are, this must be a very tiring and anxious occupation."

"But when you do arrive, his joy makes up for everything," Ben suggested.

"Yes," said Jack. "Dogs have wonderful compensations. Still, I doubt if the Fates were quite kind to them to make them at once so understanding and so dumb, or to us to make them so short-lived. You like them, don't you?"

"I adore them," said Ben.

"Would you care to have Soul?" Jack asked. It was a terrible wrench, but he asked it. ("Love my dog, love me.")

"Oh, no," said Ben. "Never! If ever a dog belonged to one person, and one only, it is Soul. And even if I accepted him, he would still be yours. He would be too loyal to transfer any but superficial affections. But you are very generous to make the offer at all," she added, "and I shall never forget it."

Melanie was sitting up when Ben returned. She was one of those girls who prefer the small hours.

"How do you find Mr. Harford?" she asked.

"He's very jolly," said Ben.

"Yes, but has he got anything to say?"

"Not very much," said Ben. "He isn't quite grown up. Such lots of young Englishmen aren't. I suppose it's this domination of the ball which keeps them boys. French youths, who don't play games, always look so old. But he's very nice and kind."

"I'll bet he didn't try to kiss you in the cab," said Melanie.

"Certainly not," said Ben. "Why should he?"

"So many of them want to," said Melanie. "But the older ones chiefly. All the same," she added, "if you're not careful you'll very shortly have the chance of offering to be a sister to him."

"I wish you wouldn't be so absurd," said Ben. "Your suspicious nature smirches everything. Mr. Harford likes me, I know, but that's all."

"Was he always as smart as that?" Melanie inquired.

"I don't know," said Ben. "I've never seen him in evening clothes before."

"And he made no overtures to-night? Will you swear?"

"Of course," said Ben.

"He didn't offer you his spaniel or anything like that?"

"Oh, Melanie, how horrid you are!" Ben exclaimed as she banged the door.

Melanie chuckled.

XXVI

The Wimbledon tournament now being over, in which Tommy Clinton had survived but two rounds, that young gentleman was only too free to devote his time to Ben, and it was therefore the more galling to him to find her so busy. He called so frequently that Mr. Harford was constrained to mention the fact.

"You will excuse me, Miss Staveley," he said one afternoon after Tommy had left, "but would you mind if we put a ladder against the wall for your friend to come and leave by?"

"Which friend?" Ben asked.

"The affable gent in the Panama hat," said Mr. Harford, "who is here most days and walks through our modest but well-conducted premises as if they were a pig-sty. We don't mind a man despising the treasures of literature; reading is, after all, a matter of taste; but we do bar the way he scowls at us. Even Pat, mild and tolerant as he is, almost squared up to him to-day. My own idea is to exchange this poor little creature here—who shares the besetting sin of all spaniels in being too ready to make indiscriminate friends—for a man-eating mastiff. What's his quarrel with us, anyway? Does he dislike us personally or did a book seller once try to do him in?"

Ben laughed. "Poor Tommy!" she said. "Be a little patient, he's going back to Madeira next week."

"An excellent place for him," said Mr. Harford.

Ben herself found Tommy rather a trial, for he not only looked at her with such hungry hopelessness, but he took up a great deal of valuable time.

His next visit was a veritable ordeal.

"Look here, Ben," he said, "I've been working for you since I was here last and I think you'll agree that I've been rather useful. Of course I hate your being in this business—the very phrase 'Beck and Call' makes me sick, for a girl like you too!—and being mixed up with those two fellows downstairs. By the way, the lame one sings too: something about his 'Bonnie,' confound him! Well, since you're set on sticking to business, and since you won't do what I ask, I want to help you to be more comfortable and more successful. So I've been nosing about and I've found you some really good premises in a central part, far removed from this back-alley and those musical shopkeepers downstairs."

"What ever do you mean?" Ben demanded, her colour rising dangerously.

"Just what I have said," Tommy replied. "I have found you some really good premises. In Dover Street. Close to the big hotels, close to Piccadilly, and approached from the street direct by a staircase. Very important, that."

"My dear boy, no doubt you meant it very well," said Ben, with some temper, "but I can't have my affairs interfered with like this. I have a lease here, for one thing; for another, it has become well known. For another, I don't want to move. Dover Street, no doubt, is a good position; but I can't afford Dover Street. This is cheap and central enough. I hope you haven't committed yourself at all."

"I've got an option," said Tommy.

"Then please oblige me by instantly getting rid of it," said Ben.

"As to the higher rent," said Tommy, "you'd make that up in a jiffy when people found you had a separate entrance and didn't have to go through a shop."

"Please get rid of it instantly," said Ben. "I shan't have a moment's peace of mind till you do. I'll come down with you," she said, with a sudden foreboding of an explosion below.

"Oh, Ben," said Tommy, miserably, "and I did want to help you! All right," he added angrily, "I'll go. And I may as well say good-bye now instead of next week. Good-bye."

"But I'm coming down with you all the same," said Ben.

XXVII

"Is that Ben?" Toby asked over the telephone at Aubrey Walk, one evening.

"Speaking," said Ben.

"I must see you," said Toby. "At once."

"But I was just going out," said Ben. "Where are you?"

"I'm at home," said Toby. "I'll come and go with you to wherever you're going. It's frightfully important. It's a matter of life and death."

Ben smiled. She had been expecting this.

"I was only going to Uncle Paul's," she said. "I'll wait for you."

"Righto!" said Toby. "I'll come in a taxi."

He came, looking wild and haggard.

"This is awful," he said. "Vi says she won't wear my ring for six months. And she wants me not to see her."

"For how long?" Ben asked.

"Six months: an eternity. How can I keep away from her for six months? It's too dreadful! If I had any poison I'd take it; but I haven't. And chemists are so jolly careful since those Welsh cases."

"Six months isn't very long," said Ben; "only twenty-six Sundays. You can stand that. Didn't Viola say anything else? She is still fond of you, isn't she?"

"She said so, but I don't understand. If you're fond of anyone you want to be with them. At least, I do. I don't get this fondness that gives you the boot. She said," he went on, "that to be engaged to me was impossible until I had something to do. Her father would never allow it. If I could find something to do, with prospects of an income within six months, she would defy her father and marry me; but she couldn't as it is. Why she doesn't defy him now, I can't see."

"Well," said Ben. "I suppose that a father, as a father, has some rights—at least as long as his daughter is dependent on him."

"But Vi's earning her own living, isn't she?" Toby asked. "Don't you pay her a salary?"

"Not just yet," said Ben. "But we won't go into that. The point is, that she lives at home and Mr. Marquand is her father."

"I had a notion that all this father stuff was out of date," said Toby. "It is, in the novels I've read."

"Only if the children choose to rebel," said Ben. "And neither Viola nor you are going to. Besides, I think he's right. He's Viola's father; he's brought her up. Why should he allow her to become engaged to the first irresponsible young man who comes along?"

"Why do you call me irresponsible?" Toby asked.

"Well, aren't you? Where is your responsibility, anyway? You're only twenty, to begin with. You've only just left Oxford. What do you know?"

"I know my way about," said Toby.

"So does Dolly, my office boy," said Ben, "who's only sixteen. Probably much better than you, because he knows how many pennies there are in a shilling, which you certainly don't. But what do you know? What have you learnt?"

"I know a certain amount of Greek and Latin," said Toby.

"Yes, but how much? Not enough to be a schoolmaster?"

"No," said Toby.

"Do you know any French?"

"Enough to get through a French novel," said Toby.

"Yes, but not enough to explain anything to a custom house officer at Calais?"

"No," said Toby. "Emphatically not."

"What else do you know?"

"I know how to order a dinner."

"That's better," said Ben. "That's the first useful thing you've mentioned."

"And I know a lot of men," said Toby.

"That's good, too," said Ben.

"And I've been asked to play for Middlesex," said Toby. "And, by the way, Vi adores cricket. It's quite the thing now for a man when he's playing away from home to take his wife with him. Heaps of them do. Vi knows quite a lot about the game. You'd be surprised."

"I should forget all that," said Ben. "You can't play for a county and be worth five hundred a year in a short time. If you really want Vi while you're both young, you must think about work, and nothing but work. Do you want her as much as that? As much as to give up cricket?"

"Of course," said Toby. "Of course I do. I can't live without her."

"You mean," said Ben, "you dislike the thought of living without her; but you'll find yourself doing so, all right. And how much does she want you?"

"I don't know," said Toby. "I don't see why she should want me at all; but she seems to. We seem to suit each other down to the ground."

"And you really and truly believe that you would like to become a married man and have a small house and go home every evening to dinner and play cricket only on Saturdays? You would look upon that as the perfect life?"

"Absolutely," said Toby.

"Very well then," said Ben, "you must act accordingly. You must remember those old fairy-tales we used to read, where the woodcutter's son, or whoever it was, had to perform all kinds of difficult tasks before he could win the princess. Your task is, as quickly as possible, to go into some business and make yourself indispensable. So far as I can see, all that Oxford has done for you, if you are to make money, is to give you an agreeable accent and nice cool manners. I fancy it's the times you've played truant in London or were at home in the vacations that have really been most useful. You couldn't learn at Oxford to order dinner."

"But what am I to do?" Toby asked. "That's the question. The governor wants me to go into Uncle Arthur's office in the city. But what's the good of that? He's got three partners as it is, all with sons. It would be years before I got a footing there."

"No," said Ben. "I shouldn't vote for that. You'd simply loaf and gamble. I'll talk to father about it."

"It's a pity you stopped me betting," said Toby. "If you hadn't, I should be rich to-day. That priceless boy of yours gave me a tip for a 100 to 8 winner, but I didn't do it. He's a marvel. He knows the whole thing—trainers, jockeys, pedigrees, courses—and he hears things too. Your friend Harford follows his advice like a baby."

"You promised," said Ben.

"I know," said Toby, "and I'll stick to it; but I think it was a mistake."

"No," said Ben, "it wasn't. But, anyway, we'll forget it and concentrate on the future. I'll go and see father first. After all, it's his job to see that you are started in something, and meanwhile don't be depressed. You ought to be proud to be put on your mettle for a girl like Vi. It makes a knight of you! You'll be happier now, won't you?"

And Toby promised.

XXVIII

But Colonel Staveley once again avoided a responsibility, for chance made me the solver of the problem.

The very next morning, as it happens, I had a letter from my old friend Marrable Leigh.

Marrable Leigh was one of those men who move amiably and quietly about on Tom Tiddler's ground picking up gold and silver. He was in no business and he was in all. He was on a Board here and a Board there, and he had a complimentary pass on every railway in the country: a privilege that is extended only to those who can afford to pay for it. To the rich shall be given, and Marrable Leigh was permitted as seldom as possible to pay for anything. Even his wine merchant implored his acceptance of a dozen, just to try, and theatrical managers were always sending him boxes. But he deserved his good luck, for he was a benign and philanthropic creature, and he had the softest white hair I ever saw.

"I wonder," he wrote, "if you know of a nice young man who could manage a county club. There's a very fine house and estate in Surrey going for a song, and I think it would be fun to make a residential place of it, with plenty of lawn-tennis courts and a golf links, billiard-rooms, and so forth. A young athletic man with brains, and plenty of friends, but not necessarily experience. The amateur is often best for this kind of thing. My idea is perhaps to live there myself and make a hobby of it as well as a home. You may come in on the ground floor if you like."

Following the line of least resistance, I took this letter at once to "The Beck and Call."

Ben read it and her excitement was intense. I never saw her look so animated and indeed beautiful: her colour was brilliant.

"Oh, dear!" she said, with a sigh that was sheer relief and content, "how amazing! And to come to-day too!"

She took the telephone and called for a number.

"Is that you, Price?" she asked. "Miss Ben speaking. Is Mr. Toby down yet? He's having breakfast. Well, tell him to come instantly to Motcombe Street. Very important. Call a taxi for him."

"Oh, dear, how happy I am!" she said. And then she told me about Toby and his affairs.

"Of course Toby's exactly what is wanted," she said. "He has heaps of friends at Oxford, and there are father's club friends, too. He's very good at games. He's mad to throw himself into something and prove that he isn't just a dud. And there's this love trouble to incite him to do more than his best. Don't you agree?"

"Well," I said, "it wouldn't matter if I didn't. Having come here for advice I shall take it. But, as it happens, I do agree. I think Toby ought to be splendid, and it is like Marrable Leigh's instinct to fasten on that type."

When Toby came in he took fire at once. "Of course I can do it," he said. "I'm used to managing. Although no one knew it I deputized for our bursar lots of times, behind the scenes. And I know of a ripping butler out of a job at this moment, at the Carterets' at Hurley, you know," he explained to his sister. "They're giving up their house. He's a nailer!"

Ben looked proudly at me.

"And if the governor was allowed to take a few shares it would be all to the good," Toby continued. "It would interest him in it."