“A firm called Beresford and Beresford. You’ll find them pretty tough nuts to negotiate with.” “Jews?” asked Reid, who had a slight acquaintance with the cigar-trade. “Yes.” “Well that’s one comfort. They won’t mess about. If they want the thing, and the price suits them, they’ll have it. . . .” § 2 Peter had spoken with great certainty about Beresfords; but as he climbed down the prison-like stone staircase of Great Winchester House he began to wonder whether he might not have misjudged the situation. Two and a half years ago, Maurice would have jumped at the opportunity of acquiring Jamesons on the terms Peter now proposed to accept. But things had altered in the cigar-trade; perhaps the arguments he intended using would not be effective. The whole proposition was very distasteful. He found himself hating the City, almost wishing he were back in the firing-line. And when, through various passages, he made his own offices, distaste deepened. Sitting there, talking generalities to Miss Macpherson (it would be time enough to tell her the business must be sold, after he had seen Maurice), memories thronged over him. He saw his father again, uncording a parcel of dock-samples, old George with his duster, Tom Simpson, himself as a raw youth. Recollection conjured up many such pictures that morning: comedies, farces, tragedies, all enacted among the cedar-boxes and the mahogany furniture of 28 b. Lime Street. After Miss Macpherson had given him the promised figures and gone off to her lunch, he prowled about the place. It seemed like a tomb now; all the life gone out of it. The faces of the two girls in the clerks’ room were as strange as the emptiness of the dusty racks. Yet, for all its apparent deadness, Jameson & Company still made profits. For a moment, studying the rough balance-sheet Miss Macpherson had prepared, Peter doubted his wisdom in selling out. Why shouldn’t he make a fight for it, let her carry-on? There was enough money on deposit in the Bank to stall off Simpson’s executors for at least six months. The selling of goods, under war-conditions, presented no difficulty. What one could import, one could dispose of. Still doubtful, he went out to lunch, avoiding the Lombard lest he should meet Beresford, going instead to a noisy old-fashioned chop-house where the food was as good as the service execrable. Over his chop, wisdom prevailed. For Patricia’s sake and the sake of his children, he dare not risk any more financial complications. With which resolution firmly in his mind, Peter walked down St. Mary Axe, entered the elaborate warehouses of Beresford and Beresford. Maurice, dapper as ever, eye-glassed, patent-booted, but short-jacketed and bowler-hatted in deference to war-conditions, happened to be in the outer-office; welcomed Peter as a long lost brother.