Under the genial influence of her sympathetic interest he expanded a little and proved that he was not as wholly incompetent as he pretended to be. For instance, he knew that the iron works and ship-building yard which still bore his father’s name, and incidentally his own, made “a deuced lot of money” every year and that certain other properties made no money. There was one property of which he spoke with great bitterness but only because his father, in his life-time, had also spoken of that matter with similar violence and asperity. Apparently, the one redeeming feature about Boltover’s Cement Works lay in the fact that it had no manager and therefore produced no reports. It was in fact a deserted shell of a building so infamously unprofitable that Boltover senior (now in Heaven) had directed almost with his last breath, if you believed Reggie, that his name should be erased from the official designation of the company. “You see it was bad cement; you know how cement is made, don’t you?” “I should love to,” said the girl, her eyes shining, “I have often wondered.” “Well,” said Reggie looking round the table for something to illustrate the object lesson, “you dig in the river and you take out a lot of stuff and you chuck it in a cart and then you chuck it into a fire and you pull it out and do something to it and there you are! That’s cement. Only our cement wasn’t cement, if you understand. That is what made the beastly thing so awkward.” “How wonderful!” said the girl. “I shall always remember that.” “Of course, we’ve got our eyes open,” said Reggie now fairly launched upon the story of his life, “and one of these days we shall catch a mug.” “Catch a--?” asked the girl, puzzled. Reggie went very pink, but he was excited and grateful at this demonstration of the girl’s refinement. “Forgive the vulgarity, Miss--Vera; I mean we shall find a purchaser. I once nearly sold the beastly thing for £10,000 and the day the deed was to be signed, they took the poor chap away to a lunatic asylum, poor old bird, not right in his head, you know. That is why he wanted to buy our cement works. Comic, isn’t it? “D’you know,” said Mr. Boltover, suddenly, “when I came round to the stage door that night I never expected to meet you?” She looked at him in innocent surprise. “Didn’t you really?” she said incredulously as though the idea had occurred to her for the first time, and then, thoughtfully, “I suppose you didn’t.” “I didn’t expect to meet you,” repeated Mr. Boltover, who, when he had got hold of one complete sentence, held tight to it until his groping mentality had reached out and securely grasped another. “No, I didn’t expect to meet you, but I’m awfully glad. I feel I owe that young lady more than I can ever repay.” He said this with an unusual display of sentimentality.