“Good-morning,” I said; “can I have some coffee and something to eat upstairs?”

He regarded me for a moment with a rather startled air, and then pulled himself together.

“Yes, saire.  Too early for lunch, saire.  ’Am-an’-eggs, saire?”

I nodded.  I had had eggs and bacon for breakfast, and on the excellent principle of not mixing one’s drinks, ’am an’-eggs sounded a most happy suggestion.

“Very well,” I said; “and I wonder if you could let me have such a thing as a sheet of paper, and a pen and ink?  I want to write a letter afterwards.”

This, I regret to say, was not strictly true, but it seemed to offer an ingenious excuse for occupying the table for some time without arousing too much curiosity.

The waiter expressed himself as being in a position to gratify me, and leaving him hastily donning his coat I marched up the staircase to the room above.

When I sat down at the table in the window I found that my expectations were quite correct.  I was looking right across into the main room of our offices, and I could see a couple of clerks working away at their desks quite clearly enough to distinguish their faces.  They were both strangers to me, but I was not surprised at this.  I always thought that George had probably sacked most of the old staff, if they had not given him notice on their own account.  Of my cousin himself I could see nothing.  He was doubtless either in his own sanctum, or in the big inner room where I used to work with Watson, my assistant.

It was of course impossible to eat much of the generous dish of ’am-an’-eggs which the waiter brought me up, but I dallied over it as long as possible, and managed to swallow a cup of rather indifferent coffee.  Then I smoked another cigar, and when the things were cleared away and the writing materials had arrived, I made a pretence of beginning my letter.

All this time, of course, I was keeping a strict watch across the street.  Nothing interesting seemed to happen, and I was just beginning to think that I was wasting my time in a rather hopeless fashion when suddenly I saw George come out of his private office into the main room opposite, wearing his hat and carrying an umbrella.  He spoke to one of the clerks as though giving him some parting instructions, and went out, shutting the door behind him.

I jumped to my feet, and hurrying down the stairs, demanded my bill from the rather surprised waiter.  Considering that I had been sitting upstairs for over an hour and a half, I suppose my haste did appear a trifle unreasonable; anyway he took so long making out the bill that at last I threw down five shillings and left him at the process.

Even so, I was only just in time.  As I came out into the street George emerged from the doorway opposite.  He looked less depressed than before and much more like his usual sleek self, and the sight of him in these apparently recovered spirits whipped up my resentment again to all its old bitterness.