Burton dragged up a chair to the side of his late employer"s desk.
"Mr. Waddington," he begged, "don"t let me go out of your sight until I have taken another bean. It came on early this morning. I went through all my wardrobe to find the wrong sort of clothes, and the only thing that seemed to satisfy me was to wear odd ones. Whatever you do, don"t lose sight of me. In a few hours" time I shouldn"t want to take a bean at all. I should be inviting you to lunch at the Golden Lion, playing billiards in the afternoon, and having a night out at a music hall."
Mr. Waddington nodded sympathetically.
"Poor fellow!" he said. "Seems odd that you should turn up this morning. I can sympathize with you. Have you noticed my tie?"
Burton nodded approvingly.
"Very pretty indeed," he declared.
"You won"t think so when you"ve had that bean," Mr. Waddington groaned.
"It began to come on with me about an hour ago. I forced myself into these clothes but the tie floored me. I"ve a volume of Ruskin here before me, but underneath, you see," he continued, lifting up the blotting-paper, "is a copy of Snapshots. I"m fighting it off as long as I can. The fact is I"ve a sale this afternoon. I thought if I could last until after that it might not be a bad thing."
"How"s the biz?" Burton asked with a touch of his old jauntiness.
"Going strong, eh?"
"Not so good and not so bad," Mr. Waddington admitted. "We"ve got over that boom that started at first when people didn"t understand things.
They seem to regard me now with a mixture of suspicion and contempt.
All the same, we get a good many outside buyers in, and we"ve pulled along all right up till now. It"s been the best few months of my life,"
Mr. Waddington continued, "by a long way, but I"m getting scared, and that"s a fact."
"How many beans have you left?" Burton inquired.
"Four," Mr. Waddington replied. "What I shall do when they"ve gone I can"t imagine."
Burton held his head for a moment a little wearily.
"There are times," he confessed, "especially when one"s sort of between the two things like this, when I can"t see my way ahead at all. Do you know that last night the man with whom I have been staying--a man of education too, who has been a professor at Oxford University,--and another, a more commercial sort of Johnny, offered me a third partnership in a great enterprise for putting on the market a new mental health-food, if I would give them one of the beans for a.n.a.lysis. They were convinced that we should make millions."
Mr. Waddington was evidently struck with the idea.
"It"s a great scheme," he said hesitatingly. "I suppose last night it occurred to you that it was just a trifle--eh?--just a trifle vulgar?"
he asked tentatively.
Burton a.s.sented gloomily.
"Last night," he declared, "it seemed to me like a crime. It made me shiver all over while they talked of it. To-day, well, I"m half glad and I"m half sorry that they"re not here. If they walked into this office now I"d swallow a bean as quickly as I could, but I tell you frankly, Mr. Waddington, that at the present moment it seems entirely reasonable to me. Money, after all, is worth having, isn"t it?--a nice comfortable sum so that one could sit back and just have a good time.
Don"t stare at me like that. Of course, I"m half ashamed of what I"m saying. There"s the other part pulling and tugging away all the time makes me feel inclined to kick myself, but I can"t help it. I know that these half formed ideas of enjoyment by means of wealth are only degrading, that one would sink--oh, hang it all, Mr. Waddington, what a mess it all is!"
Mr. Waddington pulled down his desk.
"We must go through with it, Burton," he said firmly. "You"re more advanced than I am in this thing, I can see. You"ll need your bean quickly. I believe I can hold off till after the sale. But--I"ve a curious sort of temptation at the present moment, Burton. Shall I tell you what it is?"
"Go ahead," Burton answered gloomily.
Mr. Waddington slapped his trousers pocket.
"Before we do another thing," he suggested, "let"s go round to the Golden Lion and have just one bottle of beer--just to feel what it"s like, eh?"
Burton sprang up.
"By Jove, let"s!" he exclaimed. "I"ve had no breakfast. I"m ravenous.
Do they still have that cheese and crusty loaf there?"
Mr. Waddington glanced at the clock.
"It"s on by now," he declared. "Come along."
They went out together and trod eagerly yet a trifle sheepishly the very well-known way that led to the Golden Lion. The yellow-haired young lady behind the bar welcomed them with a little cry of astonishment.
She tossed her head. Her manner was familiar but was intended to convey some sense of resentment.
"To think of seeing you two again!" she exclaimed. "You, Mr.
Waddington, of all gentlemen in the world! Well, I declare!" she went on, holding out her hand across the counter, after having given it a preliminary wipe with a small duster. "Talk about a deserter! Where have you been to every morning, I should like to know?"
"Not anywhere else, my dear," Mr. Waddington a.s.serted, hastily, "that I can a.s.sure you. Seem to have lost my taste for beer, or taking anything in the morning lately. Matter of digestion, I suppose. Must obey our doctors, eh? We"ll have a tankard each, please. That"s right, isn"t it, Burton?"
Burton, whose mouth was already full of bread and cheese, nodded. The two men sat down in a little enclosed part.i.tion. The yellow-haired young lady leaned across the counter with the air of one willing for conversation.
"Such queer things as I"ve heard about you, Mr. Waddington," she began.
"My! the way people have been talking!"
"That so?" Mr. Waddington muttered. "Wish they"d mind their own business."
"That"s too much to expect from folks nowadays," the young lady continued. "Why, there were some saying as you"d come into a fortune and spent all your time in the west-end, some that you"d turned religious, and others that you"d gone a bit dotty. I must say you"re looking somehow different, you and Mr. Burton too. It"s quite like old times, though, to see you sitting there together. You used to come in after every sale and sit just where you"re sitting now and go through the papers. How"s the business?"
"Very good," Mr. Waddington admitted. "How have you been getting along, eh?"
The young lady sighed. She rolled her eyes at Mr. Waddington in a manner which was meant to be languishing.
"Very badly indeed," she declared, "thanks to you, you neglectful, ungrateful person! I"ve heard of fickle men before but I"ve never met one to come up to one that I could name."
Mr. Waddington moved a little uneasily in his place.
"Been to the theatre lately?" he inquired.
The theatre was apparently a sore point.
"Been to the theatre, indeed!" she repeated. "Why, I refused all the other gentlemen just so as to go with you, and as soon as we got nicely started, why, you never came near again! I"ve had no chance to go."
Mr. Waddington took out a little book.
"I wonder," he suggested, "if any evening--" "Next Thursday night at seven o"clock, I shall be free," the young lady interrupted promptly.
"We"ll have a little dinner first, as we used to, and I want to go to the Gaiety. It"s lucky you came in," she went on, "for I can a.s.sure you that I shouldn"t have waited much longer. There are others, you know, that are free enough with their invitations."
She tossed her head. With her hands to the back of her hair she turned round to look at herself for a moment in one of the mirrors which lined the inside of the bar. Burton grinned at his late employer.
"Now you"ve gone and done it!" he whispered. "Why, you"ll have taken a bean before then!"