The Streets of Ascalon

"You mean I'm honest about it?"

Quarren laughed: "Anyway perhaps that's one reason why I like you. At first I also thought it was merely stupidity."

Dankmere crossed his short legs and lighted his pipe:

"The majority of your better people have managed not to know me. I've met a lot of men of sorts, but they draw the line across their home thresholds – most of them. Is it the taint of vaudeville that their wives sniff at, or my rather celebrated indigence?"

"Both, Dankmere – and then some."

"Oh, I see. Many thanks for telling me. I take it you mean that it was my first wife they shy at."

Quarren remained silent.

"She was a bar-maid," remarked the Earl. "We were quite happy – until she died."

Quarren made a slight motion of comprehension.

"Of course my marrying her damned us both," observed the Earl.

"Of course."

"Quite so. People would have stood for anything else… But she wouldn't – you may think it odd… And I was in love – so there you are."

For a while they smoked in the semi-darkness without exchanging further speech; and finally Dankmere knocked out his pipe, pocketed it, and put on his hat.

"You know," he said, "I'm not really an ass. My tastes and my caste don't happen to coincide – that's all, Quarren."

They walked together to the front stoop.

"When do we open shop?" asked the Earl, briskly.

"As soon as I get the reports from our experts."

"Won't business be dead all summer?"

"We may do some business with agents and dealers."

"I see. You and I are to alternate as salesmen?"

"For a while. When things start I want to rent the basement and open a department for repairing, relining and cleaning; and I'd like to be able to do some of the work myself."

"You?"

"Surely. It interests me immensely."

"You're welcome I'm sure," said Dankmere drily. "But who's to keep the books and attend to correspondence?"

"We'll get somebody. A young woman, who says she is well recommended, advertised in Thursday's papers, and I wrote her from Witch-Hollow to come around Sunday morning."

"That's to-morrow."

Quarren nodded.

So Dankmere trotted jauntily away into the night, and Quarren locked the gallery and went to bed, certain that he was destined to dream of Strelsa. But the sleek, narrow head and slightly protruding eyes of Langly Sprowl was the only vision that peered cautiously at him through his sleep.

The heated silence of a Sunday morning in June awoke him from a somewhat restless night. Bathed and shaved, he crept forth limply to breakfast at the Founders' Club where he still retained a membership. There was not a soul there excepting himself and the servants – scarcely a person on the avenues and cross-streets which he traversed going and coming, only one or two old men selling Sunday papers at street-stands, an old hag gleaning in the gutters, and the sparrows.

Clothing was a burden. He had some pongee garments which he put on, installed himself in the gallery with a Sunday paper, an iced lime julep, and a cigarette, and awaited the event of the young lady who had advertised that she knew all about book-keeping, stenography, and typewriting, and could prove it.

She came about noon – a pale young girl, very slim in her limp black gown, and, at Quarren's invitation, seated herself at the newly purchased desk of the firm.

Here, at his request she took a page or two of dictation from him and typed it rapidly and accurately.

She had her own system of book-keeping which she explained to the young man who seemed to think it satisfactory. Then he asked her what salary she expected, and she told him, timidly.

"All right," he said with a smile, "if it suits you it certainly suits me. Will you begin to-morrow?"

"Whenever you wish, Mr. Quarren."

"Well, there won't be very much to do for a while," he said laughingly, "except to sit at that desk and look ornamental."

She flushed, then smiled and thanked him for giving her the position, adding with another blush that she would do her best.

"Your best," he said amiably, "will probably be exactly what we require… Did you bring any letters?"

She hesitated: "One," she said gravely. She searched in her reticule, found it, and handed it to Quarren who read it in silence, then returned it to her.

"You were stenographer in Mr. Sprowl's private office?"

"Yes."

"This letter isn't signed by Mr. Sprowl."

"No, by Mr. Kyte, his private secretary."

"It seems you were there only six months."

"Six months."

"And before that where were you?"

"At home."

"Oh; Mr. Sprowl was your first employer!"

"Yes."

"Why did you leave?"