“I haven’t,” agreed Sam. “Is my father in? I’d like to see him if he’s not busy.”
Mr. Peters, recalled to his professional duties, shed his sinister front like a garment. He picked up a speaking tube and blew down it.
“Mr. Samuel to see you, Mr. Mallaby. Yes, sir, very good. Will you go right in, Mr. Samuel?”
Sam proceeded to the inner office, and found his father dictating into the attentive ear of Miss Milliken, his elderly and respectable stenographer, replies to his morning mail.
The grime which encrusted the lawyer’s professional stamping ground did not extend to his person. Sir Mallaby Marlowe was a dapper little man, with a round, cheerful face and a bright eye. His morning coat had been cut by London’s best tailor, and his trousers perfectly creased by a sedulous valet. A pink carnation in his buttonhole matched his healthy complexion. His golf handicap was twelve. His sister, Mrs. Horace Hignett, considered him worldly.
“Dear Sirs: We are in receipt of your favour and in reply beg to state that nothing will induce us … will induce us … where did I put that letter? Ah! … nothing will induce us … oh, tell ‘em to go to blazes, Miss Milliken.”
“Very well, Sir Mallaby.”
“That’s that. Ready? Messrs. Brigney, Goole and Butterworth. What infernal names these people have. Sirs, on behalf of our client … oh, hullo, Sam!”
“Good morning, father.”
“Take a seat. I’m busy, but I’ll be finished in a moment. Where was I, Miss Milliken?”
“On behalf of our client….”
“Oh, yes. On behalf of our client, Mr. Wibblesley Eggshaw…. Where these people get their names I’m hanged if I know. Your poor mother wanted to call you Hyacinth, Sam. You may not know it, but in the ‘nineties, when you were born, children were frequently christened Hyacinth. Well, I saved you from that.”
His attention was now diverted to his son, Sir Mallaby seemed to remember that the latter had just returned from a long journey, and that he had not seen him for many weeks. He inspected him with interest.
“Very glad to see you’re back, Sam. So you didn’t win?”
“No, I got beaten in the semi-finals.”
“American amateurs are a very hot lot: the best ones. I suppose you were weak on the greens, I warned you about that. You’ll have to rub up your putting before next year.”
At the idea that any mundane pursuit as practising putting could appeal to his broken spirit now, Sam uttered a bitter laugh. It was as if Dante had recommended some lost soul in the Inferno to occupy his mind by knitting jumpers.
“Well, you seem to be in great spirits,” said Sir Mallaby approvingly. “It’s pleasant to hear your merry laugh again, isn’t it, Miss Milliken?”
“Extremely exhilarating,” agreed the stenographer, adjusting her spectacles and smiling at Sam, for whom there was a soft spot in her heart.
A sense of the futility of life oppressed Sam. As he gazed in the glass that morning, he had thought, not without a certain gloomy satisfaction, how remarkably pale and drawn his face looked. And these people seemed to imagine that he was in the highest spirits. His laughter, which had sounded to him like the wailing of a demon, struck Miss Milliken as exhilarating.
“On behalf of our client, Mr. Wibblesley Eggshaw,” said Sir Mallaby, swooping back to duty once more, “we beg to state that we are prepared to accept service … sounds like a tennis match, eh, Sam? It isn’t, though. This young ass, Eggshaw … what time did you dock this morning?”
“I landed nearly a week ago.”
“A week ago! Then what the deuce have you been doing with yourself? Why haven’t I seen you?”
“I’ve been down at Bingley-on-the-Sea.”
“Bingley! What on earth were you doing at that Godforsaken place?”
“Wrestling with myself,” said Sam with simple dignity.
Sir Mallaby’s agile mind had leaped back to the letter which he was answering.
“We should be glad to meet you…. Wrestling, eh! Well, I like a boy to be fond of manly sports. Still, life isn’t all athletics. Don’t forget that. Life is real! Life is … how does it go, Miss Milliken?”