Bank, and it pleased him to sit on a stool in the Bursley branch of this bank, since he wanted, pro tempore, a dignified avocation without either the anxieties of trade or the competitive tests of a profession.  He was a beautiful bank clerk; but he had once thrown a bundle of cheques into the office fire while aiming at a basket on the mantelpiece; the whole banking world would have been agitated and disorganised had not another clerk snatched the bundle from peril at the expense of his own fingers:  the incident, still legendary behind the counter of the establishment at the top of St. Luke’s Square, kept Harry awake to the seriousness of life for several weeks.

‘Well, Harry,’ said Leonora with languid good nature.  He paid his homage in form to the mistress of the house; raised his eyebrows at Milly, who returned the gesture; smiled upon Ethel, who feebly waved a hand as if too exhausted to do more; and then sat down on the piano-stool, carefully easing the strain on his trousers at the knees and exposing an inch of fine wool socks above his American boots.  He was a familiar of the house, and had had the unconditional entree since he and the Stanway girls first went to the High Schools at Oldcastle.

‘I hope I haven’t disturbed your beauty sleep—­any of you,’ was his opening remark.

‘Yes, you have,’ said Ethel.

He continued:  ’I just came in to seek a little temporary relief from the excellent Quain.  Quain at breakfast, Quain at chapel, Quain at dinner....  I got him to slumber on one side of the hearth and mother on the other, and then I slipped away in case they awoke.  If they do, I’ve told Cissie to say that I’ve gone out to take a tract to a sick friend—­back in five minutes.’

‘Oh, Harry, you are silly!’ Millicent laughed.  Every one, including the narrator, was amused by this elaborate fiction of the managing of those two impressive persons, Mrs. Burgess and the venerable Christian geologist, by a kind, indulgent, bored Harry.  Leonora, who had resumed her magazine, looked up and smiled the guarded smile of the mother.

‘I’m afraid you’re getting worse,’ she murmured, and his candid seductive face told her that while he was on no account not to be regarded as a gay dog, and a sad dog, and a worldly dog, yet nevertheless he and she thoroughly appreciated and understood each other.  She did indeed like him, and she found pleasure in his presence; he gratified the eye.

‘I wish you’d sing something, Milly,’ he began again after a pause.

‘No,’ said Milly, ‘I’m not going to sing now.’

‘But do.  Can’t she, Mrs. Stanway?’

‘Well, what do you want me to sing?’

‘Sing “Love is a plaintive song,” out of the second act.’

Harry was the newly appointed secretary of the Bursley Amateur Operatic Society, of which both Ethel and Millicent were members.  In a few weeks’ time the Society was to render Patience in the Town Hall for the benefit of local charities, and rehearsals were occurring frequently.