George wrinkled his forehead.
“I oughtn’t to.”
“But you will, sir?”
“It’s weak of me.”
“Not it, sir. Christian, I call it.”
George pondered.
“How long have you been with me, Mullett?”
“Just on a month, sir.”
“And my pearl studs are still there?”
“Still in the drawer, sir.”
“All right, Mullett. You can stay.”
“Thank you very much, indeed, sir.”
There was a silence. The setting sun flung a carpet of gold across the roof. It was the hour at which men become confidential.
“Love is very wonderful, Mullett!” said George Finch.
“Makes the world go round, I often say, sir.”
“Mullett.”
“Sir?”
“Shall I tell you something?”
“If you please, sir.”
“Mullett,” said George Finch, “I, too, love.”
“You surprise me, sir.”
“You may have noticed that I have been fussy about my clothing of late, Mullett?”
“Oh, no, sir.”
“Well, I have been, and that was the reason. She lives on East Seventy-Ninth Street, Mullett. I saw her first lunching at the Plaza with a woman who looked like Catherine of Russia. Her mother, no doubt.”
“Very possibly, sir.”
“I followed her home. I don’t know why I’m telling you this, Mullett.”
“No, sir.”
“Since then I have haunted the sidewalk outside her house. Do you know East Seventy-Ninth Street?”
“Never been there, sir.”
“Well, fortunately it is not a very frequented thoroughfare, or I should have been arrested for loitering. Until today I have never spoken to her, Mullett.”
“But you did today, sir?”
“Yes. Or, rather, she spoke to me. She has a voice like the fluting of young birds in the springtime, Mullett.”
“Very agreeable, no doubt, sir.”
“Heavenly would express it better. It happened like this, Mullett. I was outside the house, when she came along leading a Scotch terrier on a leash. At that moment a gust of wind blew my hat off and it was bowling past her, when she stopped it. She trod on it, Mullett.”
“Indeed, sir?”
“Yes, this hat which you see in my hand, has been trodden on by Her. This very hat.”
“And then, sir?”
“In the excitement of the moment she dropped the leash, and the Scotch terrier ran off round the corner in the direction of Brooklyn. I went in pursuit, and succeeded in capturing it in Lexington Avenue. My hat dropped off again and was run over by a taxicab. But I retained my hold of the leash, and eventually restored the dog to its mistress. She said—and I want you to notice this very carefully, Mullett—she said ‘Oh, thank you so much!’ ”
“Did she, indeed, sir?”
“She did. Not merely ‘Thank you!’ or ‘Oh, thank you!’ but ‘Oh, thank you so much!” George Finch fixed a penetrating stare on his employee. “I think that is significant, Mullett.”
“Extremely, sir.”
“If she had wished to end the acquaintance then and there, would she have spoken so warmly?”
“Impossible, sir.”
“And I’ve not told you all. Having said ‘Oh, thank you so much!’ she added: ‘He is a naughty dog, isn’t he?’ You get the extraordinary subtlety of that, Mullett? The words ‘He is a naughty dog’ would have been a mere statement. By adding ‘Isn’t he?’ she invited my opinion. She gave me to understand that she would welcome discussion on the subject. Do you know what I am going to do, directly I have dressed, Mullett?”
“Dine, sir?”
“Dine!” George shuddered. “No! There are moments when the thought of food is an outrage to everything that raises Man above the level of the beasts. As soon as I have dressed—and I shall dress very carefully—I am going to return to East Seventy-Ninth Street and I am going to ring the doorbell and I am going to go straight in and inquire after the dog. Hope it is none the worse for its adventure and so on. After all, it is only the civil thing. I mean these Scotch terriers … delicate, highly-strung animals. … Never can tell what effect unusual excitement may have on them. Yes, Mullett, that is what I propose to do. Brush my dress clothes as you have never brushed them before.”
“Very good, sir.”
“Put me out a selection of ties. Say, a dozen.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And—did the bootlegger call this morning?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then mix me a very strong whisky-and-soda, Mullett,” said George Finch. “Whatever happens, I must be at my best tonight.”
IV
To George, sunk in a golden reverie, there entered some few minutes later, jarring him back to life, a pair of three-pound dumbbells, which shot abruptly out of the unknown and came trundling across the roof at him with a repulsive, clumping sound that would have disconcerted Romeo. They were followed by J. Hamilton Beamish on all fours. Hamilton Beamish, who believed in the healthy body as well as the sound mind, always did half an hour’s open-air work with the bells of an evening: and, not for the first time, he had tripped over the top stair.
He recovered his balance, his dumbbells and his spectacles in three laboursaving movements: and with the aid of the last-named was enabled to perceive George.
“Oh, there you are!” said Hamilton Beamish.
“Yes,” said George, “and. …”
“What’s all this I hear from Mullett?” asked Hamilton Beamish.
“What,” inquired George simultaneously, “is all this I hear from Mullett?”
“Mullett says you’re fooling about after some girl uptown.”
“Mullett says you knew he was an ex-convict when you recommended him to me.”
Hamilton Beamish decided to dispose of this triviality before going on to more serious business.
“Certainly,” he said. “Didn’t you read my series in the Yale Review on the ‘Problem of the Reformed Criminal’? I point out very clearly that there is nobody with such a strong bias towards honesty as the man who has just come out of prison. It stands to reason. If you had been laid up for a year in hospital as the result of jumping off this roof, what would be the one outdoor sport in which, on emerging, you would be most reluctant to indulge? Jumping off roofs, undoubtedly.”
George continued to frown in
