They entered Caterham's almost simultaneously, without noticing that the hoarding which had been built about the next door premises while a plate-glass front of noble design was being set in its place had been removed. And when they inquired for the Cachar, the young lady said--“He is in the new shop--you go through the arch on the left.” There was a Norman arch of lath and plaster enriched by insets of highly decorated Lincrusta--the paper-hangmen had just left it--in the partition wall; through it the ladies went and found themselves in a spacious shop with a profusion of cheap specimens of Oriental china on lacquer brackets about the walls, and an all-pervading smell of freshly roasted coffee. It was clearly the newly acquired premises of the enterprising Messrs. Caterham, which they meant to run as a shop for the sale of Indian tea and West Indian coffee--the “Old Flag” was their trade-mark--and a brisk sale of half-pound and quarter-pound packets was going on at the counter. So much the ladies who had just entered could see; but a moment after they had taken their first illuminating glance round the place they stood with their eyes fixed upon one of the most prominent objects of the place--the bustling figure of the Cachar of Darjeeling in native dress, turban and jewels and all, tying up parcels of tea behind the counter, and testing the coins which the crowd of customers tendered in payment before pulling the bell-ringing drawer of the cash register! The enterprise of Messrs. Caterham had suggested to them the advertising attraction in the form of a full-robed Oriental at the head of their new tea department. They had promoted one of their old hands--he came from the East End of London--to the post, and having “made up” under the guidance of one of Messrs. Nathan's most highly qualified assistants, Messrs. Caterham were perhaps not going too far when they asserted in their advertisements that the tea trade of Burford would assume an entirely new complexion. The ladies gazed in horrible fascination upon the impostor--at the moment they were unable to differentiate between an advertisement and an impostor--for nearly a whole minute, and then they turned and walked slowly away without exchanging a word. Mrs. Paston left Burford the next day, having been ordered by her medical adviser to Buxton. But Major Sowerby picked out his most serviceable Malacca cane, and was heard to declare, while trying its balance in downward strokes from left to right, that he had only to come across that scoundrel who called himself by the honourable title of a loyal Indian potentate in order to teach him a lesson that he would remember so long as he had breath in his body.