Page:The Specimen Case.djvu/181

172 "I'm sure it would be, sir. I wish we could persuade him to take it."

"But I haven't made it," he reminded her.

"No, and it would be no good," she said dolefully.

"We shall have to give it up then, eh?"

Rosie pondered a minute, deeply.

"I think, sir," she suggested prettily, "that if I could go to him and say that you had let out to me that you would give eight hundred pounds, and remind him that last night he had said a thousand, he would say, as they do hereabouts, 'Well, I don't mind splitting the difference.

Mr. Lester looked at the ingenuous maiden with an admiration he usually reserved for excessively rare coins in mint condition.

"Go and see, my dear," he said at length, "and you may earn a really beautiful bangle. Only, for heaven's sake don't forget and begin at the nine hundred with him."

About noon, two days later, Mr. Lester entered his partner's room, and flinging a suit-case into one armchair and himself into another, groaned several times as though he was in acute physical pain.

"What the deuce is the matter?" demanded Mr. Scott sharply. "Where have you been?"

"At Mercer's, learning the worst," moaned Mr. Lester. "Scott, if you utter one word of reproach I shall go down and commit suicide on that five-hundred-guinea Persian carpet."

"Well, well," replied Mr. Scott, "I see. You've lost three days and not got any of the things. Can't be helped."

So far from being soothed Mr. Lester roared like an agonised elephant.