"The office--why, you have left the office to come round here. If you could leave it to come here, surely you could have left it for a more important purpose. Well, you may take this from me: soon there will be no office to leave. It's quite possible that if Mr James makes a fool of himself, he'll leave business and do what he's always threatening to do--go in for farming. When a man once begins making a fool of himself, he goes on doing so, the appetite comes with eating. Well, you had better go back to the office and remember this for your own sake, for my sake, for Mr James' sake, keep your eyes open. If you get another chance, follow them." Bridgewater left the house walking in a very depressed manner. In Oxford Street he entered a bar and had a glass of sherry and a biscuit. As he left the bar, who should he see but James Hancock--James Hancock, and Fanny side by side. They were looking in at a shop window. CHAPTER III AN OLD MAN'S OUTING On leaving the office, the happy thought had occurred to Fanny of telegraphing at once to her father apprising him of Charles Bevan's decision. Accordingly they sought the nearest telegraph office, where Miss Lambert indited the following despatch:-- "TO LAMBERT, C/O MISS PURSEHOUSE, THE ROOST, ROOKHURST. "Mr Bevan has stopped the action. Isn't it sweet of him?" "Any name?" asked the clerk. "Oh yes," replied Fanny, suddenly remembering that her connection with the matter ought to be kept dark. "Put Hancock." Then they sought Oxford Street, where Fanny remembered that she had some shopping to do. "I won't be a minute," she said, pausing before a draper's. "Will you come in, or wait outside?" Mr Hancock elected to wait outside, and he waited. It was an unfortunate shop for a man to wait before: there was nothing in the windows but _lingerie_; the shop on the left of it was a bonnet shop, and the establishment on the right was a bar. So he had to wait, standing on the kerbstone, in full view of mankind. In two minutes three men passed who knew him, and in the middle of the fourth minute old Sir Henry Tempest, one of his best clients, who was driving by in a hansom, stopped, got out and button-holed him. "Just the man I want to see, what a piece of luck! I was going to your office. See here, that d----d scamp of a Sawyer has sent me in a bill for sixteen pounds--sixteen pounds for those repairs I spoke to you about. Why! I'd have got 'em done for six if he had left them to me. But jump into the cab, and come and have luncheon, and we can talk things over." "I can't," said Mr Hancock, "I am waiting for a lady--my sister, she has just gone into that shop. I'll tell you, I will see you, any time you like, to-morrow."