‘All my present risks?’

’You have risks, Mr. Hugo, because your business has increased so rapidly that your income is out of all proportion to your capital, which consists almost solely of buildings which you could not sell at anything like their cost price in open market, and of goodwill.  Now, I ask you, what is goodwill?  What is it?  Under our scheme you would at once become a millionaire in actual fact.’

‘Decidedly an inviting prospect,’ said Hugo.

He walked about the room.

‘Then I may take it that you are at any rate prepared to negotiate?’ the lawyer ventured, staring at the fountain.

‘Mr. Polycarp,’ answered Hugo, ’I must first give you a little information and ask you a few questions.’

‘Certainly.’

Hugo halted in front of Polycarp, close to him, and, lighting a cigar, gazed down at the frigid lawyer.

‘Till the age of twenty-eight,’ he began, ’I had no object in life.  I was educated at Oxford.  I narrowly escaped the legal profession.  I had a near shave of the Church.  I wasted years in aimless travel, waiting for destiny to turn up.  I was conscious of no gift except a power for organizing.  That gift I felt I had, and gradually I perceived that I would like to be the head of some large and complicated undertaking.  I examined the latest developments of modern existence, and came to the conclusion that the direction of a thoroughly up-to-date stores would amuse me as well as anything.  So I bought this concern—­a flourishing little drapery and furnishing business it was then.  I had exactly fifty thousand pounds—­not a cent more.  I paid twenty-five thousand for the business.  It was too much, but when an idea takes me it takes me.  I required a fine-sounding name, and I chose Hugo.  It was an inspiration.’

‘Then Hugo is not your—­’

’It is not.  My real name is Owen.  But think of “Owen” on a flag, and then think of “Hugo” on a flag.’

‘Exactly.’

’I began.  And because I had everything to learn I lost money at first.  I took lessons in my own shop, and the course cost me a hundred a week for some months.  But in two years I had proved that my theory of myself was correct.  In ten I had made nearly a quarter of a million.  Everyone knows the history of my growth.’

Polycarp nodded.

’In the eleventh year I determined to emerge from the chrysalis.  I dreamed a dream of my second incarnation as universal tradesman.  And the fabric of my dream, Mr. Polycarp, you behold around you.’  He waved the cigar.  ‘It is the most colossal thing of its kind ever known.’

Polycarp nodded again.

’Some people regard it as extravagant.  It is.  It is meant to be.  Hugo’s store is only my fun, my device for amusing myself.  We have glorious times here, I and my ten managers—­my Council of Ten.  They know me; I know them.  They are well paid; they are artists.  A trade spirit must, of course, actuate a trade concern; but above that, controlling that, is another spirit—­the spirit which has made this undoubtedly the greatest shop in the world.  I cannot describe it, but it exists.  All my managers, and even many of the rank and file, feel it.’