Luke knocked at the door of Mr. Diggle's room, and entered.
"I'm back," he said. "Been lunching with a man. Can I have a
partnership?"
"Not to-day, Mr. Sharper," said Diggle. "You should be more
reasonable. The whole office is more or less disorganized by the
spring-cleaning. It seems to me that you try to make more trouble. You
go out a great deal for a business man."
"I have to. Things for my wife, you know. Soft glass and paper soap.
Things of that kind."
"I don't wish to hear about it. They will not be actually beginning on
your room till Monday. It may be in some slight disorder, but that
need not prevent you from going back there and getting on with your
work. You have to write that full-page advertisement for the _'Church
Times'_, you remember."
He went on to his own room. He picked up the little booklets from the
floor, dusted each one carefully, and wrapped it in white paper. As he
was finishing the last a letter was brought in to him. The messenger
was waiting for an answer. It was in Jona's handwriting.
"Darling Lukie," she wrote, "I can bear it no more. Take me away,
please. Shall I come along to your office, or will you call for the
goods? Jona."
He collapsed in a chair, his head buried in his hands.
Half-an-hour later the clerk came in to say that the messenger was
still waiting.
"Sit down," said Luke.
The clerk sat down for half-an-hour. Luke still meditated. Then the
office boy came in to fetch the clerk. It was necessary to do
something, to decide at once. His promise to Mabel had been quite
definite. He would bring back the spring-cleaning requisites on his
bicycle that evening. There had been a sardonic cruelty in sending him
to purchase the materials for his own torture. Still, he had promised.
Drawing a sheet of the firm's paper with the memo. head on it towards
him, he wrote as follows:
"Jona: I can't get away to elope with you to-day. My wife won't let
me. If you are still of the same mind on Saturday, the train I shall
take for Brighton leaves Victoria at eleven."
He sent the letter down to the messenger, and then Diggle entered.
"Do you want to see me about the partnership?" said Sharper.
"No. I wanted to see you about the full-page advertisement for the
_'Church Times.'_ Have you written it?"
"I've not, so to speak, written it."
"Well, Sharper, I've been talking to Dobson about you. I don't want to
hurt your feelings, but our office space here is very limited. We are
of the opinion that perhaps the amount of room you occupy here is
intrinsically of more value than any services which you render to the
business, or even the pleasure that your society naturally gives us. I
don't know if you take my meaning."
"Do you want to turn me out?" said Sharper.
"Don't put it like that. You don't seem to know anything about
business. You never do any work. You're playing about with Lady Tyburn
in a way that'll bring scandal on the firm. But we don't want to turn
you out. We don't want to do anything harsh. All we say is that we
think it would be better for all concerned if you don't come here
again. I think that will be all. Good evening, Mr. Sharper."
Luke went out and purchased the articles Mabel had asked him to buy.
He then went to four different chemists, and at each one purchased a
little oxalic acid, saying in each case that he wanted it to clean a
straw hat.
With his bicycle laden considerably above the Plimsoll mark, he
pedalled wearily homewards. He only fell off once, and it was a pity
that this broke the bottle of turpentine, for he happened to be
carrying it in the inside pocket of his coat.