The next morning was one of promise. For half an hour before the time appointed for his meeting, John was waiting, seated upon a penny chair, thinking innumerable thoughts, smoking innumerable cigarettes. Sometimes he felt the money that was in his pocket, running his finger nail over the minted edge of the half crowns and florins to distinguish them from the pennies. No woman, whatever franchise she may win, will ever understand the delight of this. You must have a pocket in your trousers and keep your money there--even gold when you possess it--to appreciate the innocent joy of such an occupation as this. Men have really a deal to be grateful for. That morning, John had money. He even had gold. He had pawned his gold watch-chain, intending, if the opportunity arose, to ask Jill to lunch. The watch, as you know, was smashed up. That is a technical term in use amongst all gentlemen and sensitive people, having this great advantage that it may be taken literally or not, at will. No one who uses the term has ever been so much in want of shame as to define it. You may wonder why it is that the watch and not the chain should get smashed up first. It is the watch that tells the time. But then, it is the chain that tells you have got the watch that tells the time, and in this life one has always to be considering that there would be no maiden all forlorn if it were not for the house that Jack built. The chain will always be the last to go, so long as those three brass balls continue to hang over that suspicious-looking shop in the dingy side street. John’s watch had been smashed up for some weeks; but little boys and little girls in the street still flattered him by asking to be told the time. With one eye searching for a distant clock while your hand pulls out the latch key which depends upon the chain, giving it the weight of a reason to stay in the pocket, you can easily deceive the eyes of these unsuspecting little people in the street. If you discover the distant clock, all well and good. If not, then a hundred devices are left open to you. You can guess--you can tell it by the sun, but, and if you are conscientious, you can apologise and say your watch has stopped. And last of all, if it is a nice little person with eyes in which a laugh is always a-tip-toe, you may dangle the key in front of their face, and with their merriment experience the clean pleasure of honesty. A quality about John that was interesting, was his ability to anticipate possibilities. Perhaps a man’s mind runs instinctively to the future, and it is the woman who lives in the past. When Mrs. Rowse awakened him in the morning, he sat up in bed with the glowing consciousness that something was to happen that day. Something had been arranged; some appointment was to be kept; some new interest had entered his life which was to take definite shape that very day.