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Merton was reading the newspaper in the office, expecting a client. Miss Blossom was typewriting in the inner chamber; the door between was open. The office boy knocked at Merton’s outer door, and the sound of that boy’s strangled chuckling was distinctly audible to his employer. There is something irritating in the foolish merriment of a youthful menial. No conduct could be more likely than that of the office boy to irritate the first client, arriving on business of which it were hard to exaggerate the delicate and anxious nature.
These reflections flitted through Merton’s mind as he exclaimed ‘Come in,’ with a tone of admonishing austerity.
The office boy entered. His face was scarlet, his eyes goggled and ran water. Hastily and loudly exclaiming ‘Mr. and Miss Apsley’ (which ended with a crow) he stuffed his red pocket handkerchief into his mouth and escaped. At the sound of the names, Merton had turned towards the inner door, open behind him, whence came a clear and piercing trill of feminine laughter from Miss Blossom. Merton angrily marched to the inner door, and shut his typewriter in with a bang. His heart burned within him. Nothing could be so insulting to clients; nothing so ruinous to a nascent business. He wheeled round to greet his visitors with a face of apology; his eyes on the average level of the human countenance divine. There was no human countenance divine. There was no human countenance at that altitude. His eyes encountered the opposite wall, and a print of ‘Mrs. Pelham Feeding Chickens.’
In a moment his eyes adjusted themselves to a lower elevation. In front of him were standing, hand in hand, a pair of small children, a boy of nine in sailor costume, but with bare knees not usually affected by naval officers, and a girl of seven with her finger in her mouth.
The boy bowed gravely. He was a pretty little fellow with a pale oval face, arched eyebrows, promise of an aquiline nose, and two large black eyes. ‘I think, sir,’ said the child, ‘I have the pleasure of redressing myself to Mr. Gray or Mr. Graham?’
‘Graham, at your service,’ said Merton, gravely; ‘may I ask you and Miss Apsley to be seated?’
There was a large and imposing arm-chair in green leather; the client’s chair. Mr. Apsley lifted his little sister into it, and sat down beside her himself. She threw her arms round his neck, and laid her flaxen curls on his shoulder. Her blue eyes looked shyly at Merton out of her fleece of gold. The four shoes of the clients dangled at some distance above the carpet.
‘You are the author of this article, I think, Mr. Graham?’ said Mr. Apsley, showing his hand, which was warm, and holding out a little crumpled ball of paper, not precisely fresh.
Merton solemnly unrolled it; it contained the advertisement of his firm.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I wrote that.’
‘You got our letters, for you answered them,’ said Mr. Apsley, with equal solemnity. ‘Why do you want Bats and me?’
‘The lady’s name is Bats?’ said Merton, wondering why he was supposed to ‘want’ either of the pair.
‘My name is Batsy. I like you: you are pretty,’ said Miss Apsley.
Merton positively blushed: he was unaccustomed to compliments so frank from a member of the sex at an early stage of a business interview. He therefore kissed his fair client, who put up a pair of innocent damp lips, and then allowed her attention to be engrossed by a coin on his watch-chain.
‘I don’t quite remember your case, sir, or what you mean by saying I wanted you, though I am delighted to see you,’ he said to Mr. Apsley. ‘We have so many letters! With your permission I shall consult the letter book.’
‘The article says “To Parents, Guardians, Children, and others.” It was in print,’ remarked Mr. Apsley, with a heavy stress on “children,” ‘and she said you wanted us.’
The mystified Merton, wondering who ‘she’ was, turned the pages of the letter book, mumbling, ‘Abernethy, Applecombe, Ap. Davis, Apsley. Here we are,’ he began to read the letter aloud. It was typewritten, which, when he saw his clients, not a little surprised him.
‘Gentlemen,’ the letter ran, ‘having seen your advertisement in the Daily Diatribe of to-day, May 17, I desire to express my wish to enter into communication with you on a matter of pressing importance.—I am, in the name of my sister, Miss Josephine Apsley, and myself,
‘Faithfully yours,
‘Thomas Lloyd Apsley.’
‘That’s the letter,’ said Mr. Apsley, ‘and you wrote to us.’
‘And what did I say?’ asked Merton.
‘Something about preferences, which we did not understand.’
‘References, perhaps,’ said Merton. ‘Mr. Apsley, may I ask whether you wrote this letter yourself?’
‘No; None-so-pretty printed it on a kind of sewing machine. She told us to come and see you, so we came. I called her None-so-pretty, out of a fairy story. She does not mind. Gran says she thinks she rather likes it.’
‘I shouldn’t wonder if she did,’ said Merton. ‘But what is her real name?’
‘She made me promise not to tell. She was staying at the Home Farm when we were staying at Gran’s.’
‘Is Gran your grandmother?’
‘Yes,’ replied Mr. Apsley.
Hereon Bats remarked that she was ‘velly hungalee.’
‘To be sure,’ said Merton. ‘Luncheon shall be brought at once.’ He rang the bell, and, going out, interpellated the office boy.
‘Why did you laugh when my friends came to luncheon? You must learn manners.’
‘Please, sir, the kid, the young gentleman I mean, said he came on business,’ answered the boy, showing apoplectic symptoms.
‘So he did; luncheon is his business. Go and bring luncheon for—five, and see that there are chicken, cutlets, tartlets, apricots, and ginger-beer.’
The boy departed and Merton reflected. ‘A hoax, somebody’s practical joke,’ he said to himself. ‘I wonder who Miss None-so-pretty is.’ Then he returned, assured Batsy that luncheon was even at the doors, and leaving her to look at Punch, led Mr. Apsley aside. ‘Tommy,’ he said (having seen his signature), ‘where do you live?’
The boy named a street on the frontiers of St. John’s Wood.
‘And who is your father?’
‘Major Apsley, D.S.O.’
‘And how did you come here?’
‘In a hansom. I told the man to wait.’
‘How did you get away?’
‘Father took us to Lord’s, with Miss Limmer, and there was a crowd, and Bats and I slipped out; for None-so-pretty said we ought to call on you.’
‘Who
