“I wish to Heaven I’d a right good, hard-headed Yorkshireman to talk to!” he said.  “A chap with some gumption about him!  These Cockneys and Americans are all very well in their way, but—­”

Then he pulled himself up sharply.  An idea, a name, had flashed into his mental field of vision as if sent in answer to his prayer.  And still regardless of bystanders he slapped his thigh delightedly.

“Ambler Appleyard!” he exclaimed.  “The very man!  Here, you!”

The last two words were addressed to a taxi-cab driver whose car stood at the head of the line by the Gaiety Theatre.  Allerdyke crossed from the pavement and jumped in.

“Run down to this end of Gresham Street,” he said.  “Go quick as you can.”

He wondered as he sped along the crowded London streets why he had not thought of Ambler Appleyard before.  Ambler Appleyard was the manager of his own London warehouse, a smart, clever, pushing young Bradford man who had been in charge of the London business of Allerdyke and Partners, Limited, for the last three years.  He had come to London with his brains already sharpened—­three years of business life in the Metropolis had made them all the sharper.  Allerdyke rubbed his hands with satisfaction.  Exchange of confidence with a fellow-Yorkshireman was the very thing he wanted.

He got out of his cab at the Aldersgate end of Gresham Street, and walked quickly along until he came to a highly polished brass plate on which his own name was deeply engraven.  Running up a few steps into a warehouse stored with neat packages of dress goods, he encountered a couple of warehousemen engaged in sorting and classifying a consignment of fabrics just arrived from Bradford.  Allerdyke, whose visits to his London warehouse were fairly frequent, and usually without notice, nodded affably to both and walked across the floor to an inner office.  He opened the door without ceremony, closed it carefully behind him, and stepping forward to the occupant of the room, who sat busily writing at a desk, with his back to the entrant, and continued to write without moving or looking round, gave him a resounding smack on the shoulder.

“The very man I want, Ambler, my lad!” he said.  “Sit up!”

Ambler Appleyard raised his head, slowly twisted in his revolving chair, and looked quietly at his employer.  And Allerdyke, dropping into an easy-chair by the fireplace, over which hung a fine steel engraving of himself, flanked by photographs of the Bradford mills and the Bradford warehouse, looked at his London manager, secretly admiring the shrewdness and self-possession evidenced in the young man’s face.  Appleyard was certainly no beauty; his outstanding features were sandy-coloured hair, freckled cheeks, a snub nose, and a decidedly wide mouth; moreover, his ears, unusually large, stood out from the sides of his head in very prominent fashion, and gave a beholder the impression that they were perpetually stretched to