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Peter, on the other hand, returned to Lime Street in a state of quiet elation. Money apart, it was amusing to have scored off Maurice. Remained now to settle with the Elkinses. He called up young Charlie Elkins; asked him to come round.

“All right. Four o’clock,” said the voice at the microphone. Then “Pretty” Bramson rang up from the factory; and, listening to his report—(“fifty thousand Virginians from Singapore; twenty thousand Egyptian gold-tips from the Argentine; heaps of export orders but home trade rather quiet. Are you coming up tomorrow, Sir?”)—Peter’s new-found interest in Jameson’s suffered eclipse.

He hung up the receiver; looked across at Simpson, rereading the contract for the tenth time. Undoubtedly the selling of cigars, of other people’s cigars was—even as a sole agent—a pretty dull affair. Simpson had been sitting at that very same desk twenty, twenty-five, thirty years; would sit there till he died.

The bell rang again. Reid this time, of Reid, Chatterton & Reid, Chartered Accountants. “Mr. Reid wished to ask Mr. Jameson if next Monday would be convenient for the Nirvana board-meeting.”

“Quite convenient, thank you.”

Entered, from the side door which led to the bookkeeping office, Miss Macpherson, chief of the clerical staff—a dour loyal Scotchwoman of forty, dressed in the usual blouse and skirt, the bad boots of her order. She carried “the post” in one hand, her note-book in the other; took the vacant stool next to Simpson; said “Your letters, Mr. Simpson,” in a firm, tired voice.

Simpson began to dictate, hesitatingly; querying this; consulting her about that.

“In reply to your favour of even date. …”

Peter got up; wandered out into the warehouse; began a leisurely inspection of some newly-arrived dock-samples; pushed an oily Corona from the centre of a ribboned bundle; lit it.

Came Elkins. “Smooth” is the only adjective applicable to the new-comer. He had a smooth voice, smooth hair, smooth hands, a smooth manner and a very smooth silk-hat. He was clean-shaven, jet-haired; looked more like a junior clerk in Rothschild’s Bank than junior partner in a mercantile business.

“Good afternoon, Peter,” he said. “What’s the trouble?”

“Afternoon, Elkins. Come inside, won’t you?”

Peter led the way into a tiny room off the warehouse: a room furnished with two chairs, a small gas-stove, and many cedar cabinets of cigars.

“Coffin department?” queried Elkins, sitting down. …

“I wanted to speak to you about Beckmanns,” began Peter, not acknowledging the trade jest.

“Oh, we’ve been doing very little with the brand lately. The stuff’s no good, you know. Too strong. And the dollar-prices on current sizes too high.”

“Really,” said Peter, who had for some years been drawing a small clandestine commission on the imports of both his competitors. “Then of course you won’t mind having to stop importing them.”

At this, it seemed as though little wrinkles creased themselves all over Elkins’ smoothnesses.

“Stop importing them? What do you mean?”

Peter told him; not omitting to mention that “pending orders” would not be shipped.

“But this is outrageous,” burst out young Elkins. “Positively outrageous. Why, we’ve been handling their goods for years. For years and years. Got customers for them. Customers who won’t take anything else.”

“Yes, I know,” sympathized Peter: and named them.

Elkins changed his note. “You don’t really mean to cut us off, Peter.”

“Of course I do.”

“But we’d buy the goods from you; pay you cash for them.”

“Till you’d persuaded your customers to try something else. Not much. Besides, I want all the profit; not just a percentage.”

“But the pending orders. They’re mostly sold in advance. It will make us look ridiculous. Positively ridiculous. I don’t know what my father will say. …”

It was five o’clock by the time that Peter—having reluctantly promised to “think over” the matter of the pending orders—got rid of him; joined Simpson for a cup of tea.

“You know,” said Simpson, “I simply can’t get over this contract business.” He pulled a piece of scribbling paper towards him, started figuring. “It means at least £1500 a year more profit. There’s the Cunard Company—they’ve been buying from Beresfords. And Towle at the Midland—that’s Elkins’ account. … I must talk to the travellers about this. Hargreaves is in the suburbs today; he won’t be in till the morning. I’ve written Mallabone to come up on Saturday. …”

“Oh, damn the travellers,” pronounced Peter. “They’re no good for this sort of job. We’ll have to do it ourselves.”

He took the Tube as far as Oxford Circus; walked slowly down Regent Street into Piccadilly Circus. All about him lights blazed, motors thrummed and hooted, people jostled. London, London as she was towards the end of the Great Peace! London—tango-dancing, theatre-going, night-clubbing London! London! City of the seven millions, where—scum that floated upwards, glistening, utterly useless—loose women and vicious politicians, emasculate authors and popularity-hunting actors, rag-time dancers and company-promoters, preened and bloated, spent and gambled, fooling away the night-time. Yet London—for all this scum that fed upon her fineness—solid at heart, worthy if deceptive capital of an Empire compared with whose achievements Rome was a weakling and Athens a nonentity.

But Peter Jameson, worker, cared for none of these things!

He looked up at the electric signs that winked and glinted on the darkness: at the “Paripan Paint” sign, and the two whirling clock-faces over Saqui and Lawrences’s, at the snaky twirls of “Oxo” and the high circles of “O. O.” Whisky. And he visioned—vaguely, for it was three years since his last visit—Broadway, New York: Rosbach’s burning fountain, “Owl” Cigars, “Anargyros” Cigarettes, the theatre lamps and the drugstore lamps. “They, the Americans, understood advertising; responded to it. Compared with them, we were only children,” thought Peter Jameson. “Confound it, why should the home-trade of Nirvana lag behind the export?”

Then he glanced at the watch on his wrist; saw it was nearly half past seven; remembered—for the first time since leaving Lowndes Square in the morning—that he possessed a wife.