was beginning to slacken speed. Jacob rose to his feet.
“I am changing carriages here,” he remarked. “I am obliged to you all for putting up with my company for so long.”
Mr. Bultiwell cleared his throat. There was noticeable in his tone some return of his former pomposity.
“Under the present circumstances, Mr. Pratt,” he said, “I see no reason why you should leave us. I should like to hear more about your wonderful good fortune and to discuss with you your plans for the future. If you are occupied now, perhaps this evening at home. My roses are worth looking at.”
Jacob smiled in a peculiar fashion.
“I have a friend waiting for me in the third-class portion of the train,” he replied. “Until eleven o’clock, Mr. Pedlar.”
CHAPTER II
The melancholy man was seated in his favourite corner, gazing out at the landscape. He scarcely looked up as Jacob entered. It chanced that they were alone.
“Richard Dauncey,” Jacob said impressively, as soon as the train had started again, “you once sat in that corner and smiled at me when I got in. I think you also wished me good morning and admired my rose.”
“It was two years ago,” Dauncey assented.
“Did you ever hear of a man,” Jacob went on, “who made his fortune with a smile? Of course not. You are probably the first. Look at me steadfastly. This is to be a heart-to-heart talk. Why do you go about looking as though you were the most miserable creature on God’s earth?”
Richard Dauncey sighed.
“You needn’t rub it in. My appearance is against me in business and in every way. I can’t help it. I have troubles.”
“They are at an end,” Jacob declared. “Don’t jump out of the window or do anything ridiculous, my friend, but sit still and listen. You have been starving with a wife and two children on three pounds a week. Your salary from to-day is ten pounds a week, with expenses.”
Dauncey shook his head.
“You are not well this morning, man.”
Jacob produced the letters and handed them over to his friend, who read them with many exclamations of wonder. When he returned them, there was a little flush in his face.
“I congratulate you, Jacob,” he said heartily. “You are one of those men who have the knack of keeping a stiff upper lip, but I know what you have suffered.”
“Congratulate yourself, too, old chap,” Jacob enjoined, holding out his hand. “Exactly what I am going to do in the future I haven’t quite made up my mind, but this I do know—we start a fresh life from lunch-time to-day, you and I. You can call yourself my secretary, for want of a better description, until we settle down. Your screw will be ten pounds a week, and if you refuse the hundred pounds I am going to offer you at our luncheon table at Simpson’s to-day, I shall knock you down.”
Dauncey apologised shamefacedly, a few minutes later, for a brief period of rare weakness.
“It’s the wife, old chap,” he explained, as they drew near the terminus. “You see, I married a little above my station, but there was never any money, and the two kids came and there didn’t seem enough to clothe them properly, or feed them properly, or put even a trifle by in case anything should happen to me. Life’s been pretty hard, Jacob, and I can’t make friends. Or rather I never have been able to until you came along.”
They shook hands once more, a queer but very human proceeding in those overwrought moments.
“Just you walk to the office this morning,” Jacob said, “with your head in the air, and keep on telling yourself there’s no mistake about it. You’re going home to-night with a hundred pounds in bank notes in your pocket, with a bottle of wine under one arm, and a brown paper parcel as big as you can carry under the other. You’re out of the wood, young fellow, and you be thankful for the rest of your life that you found the way to smile one morning. So long till one o’clock at Simpson’s,” he added, as they stepped out on to the platform. “Hi, taxi!”
Mr. Bultiwell came hurrying along, with a good deal less than his usual dignity. He was not one of those men who were intended by nature to proceed at any other than a leisurely pace.
“Pratt,” he called out, “wait a minute. We’ll share that taxi, eh?”
Jacob glanced over his shoulder.
“Sorry,” he answered, “I’m not going your way.”
Soon after the opening of that august establishment, Jacob, not without some trepidation, visited the Bank of England. At half-past ten, he strolled into the warehouse of Messrs. Smith and Joyce, leather merchants, Bermondsey Street, the firm for which he had been working during the last two years. Mr. Smith frowned at him from behind a stack of leather.
“You’re late this morning, Pratt,” he growled. “I thought perhaps you had gone over to see that man at Tottenham.”
“The man at Tottenham,” Jacob remarked equably, “can go to hell.”
Mr. Smith was a short, thin man with a cynical expression, a bloodless face and a loveless heart. He opened his mouth a little, a habit of his when surprised.
“I suppose it is too early in the morning to suggest that you have been drinking,” he said.
“You are right,” Jacob acknowledged. “A little later in the day I shall be able to satisfy everybody in that respect.”
Mr. Smith came out from behind the stack of leather. He was wearing a linen smock over his clothes and paper protectors over his cuffs.
“I don’t think you’re quite yourself this morning, Pratt,” he observed acidly.
“I am not,” Jacob answered. “I have had good news.”
Mr. Smith was a farseeing man, with a brain which worked quickly. He remembered in a moment the cause of Jacob’s failure. Oil might be found at any time!
“I am very glad to hear it, Pratt,” he said. “Would you like to come into the office and have a little chat?”
Jacob looked his employer squarely in the face.
“Never so long as I live,” he replied. “Just the few words I want to say to you, Mr. Smith, can be said here. You gave me a job when I was down and out. You gave it to me not out of pity but because you knew I was a damned good traveller. I’ve trudged the streets for you, ridden in tram-cars, ’buses and tubes, sold your leather honestly and carefully for two years. I’ve doubled your turnover; I’ve introduced you to the soundest connection you ever had on your books. Each Christmas a clerk in the counting house has handed me an extra sovereign—to buy sweets with, I suppose! You’ve never raised my salary, you’ve never uttered a word of thanks. I’ve brought you in three of the biggest contracts you ever had in your life, and you accepted
