"You were!" Mr. Enwright halted again for an instant. "It's the only place in London where the structure of society is anything like Paris. Why, dash it, in the King's Road the grocers know each other's business!" Mr. Enwright made the last strange remark to the outer door, and vanished. "Funny cove!" George commented tolerantly to Mr. Haim, who passed through the room immediately afterwards to his nightly task of collecting and inspecting the scattered instruments on the principal's august drawing-board. But Mr. Haim, though possibly he smiled ever so little, would not compromise himself by an endorsement of the criticism of his employer. George was a mere incident in the eternal career of Mr. Haim at Lucas & Enwright's. When the factotum came back into the pupils' room, George stood up straight and smoothed his trousers and gazed admiringly at his elegant bright socks. "Let me see," said George in a very friendly manner. "_You_ live somewhere in Chelsea, don't you?" "Yes," answered Mr. Haim. "Whereabouts, if it isn't a rude question?" "Well," said Mr. Haim, confidentially and benignantly, captivated by George's youthful charm, "it's near the Redcliffe Arms." He mentioned the Redcliffe Arms as he might have mentioned the Bank, Piccadilly Circus, or Gibraltar. "Alexandra Grove. No. 8. To tell you the truth, I own the house." "The deuce you do!" "Yes. The leasehold, that is, of course. No freeholds knocking about loose in that district!" George saw a new and unsuspected Mr. Haim. He was impressed. And he was glad that he had never broken the office tradition of treating Mr. Haim with a respect not usually accorded to factotums. He saw a property-owner, a tax-payer, and a human being behind the spectacles of the shuffling, rather shabby, ceremonious familiar that pervaded those rooms daily from before ten till after six. He grew curious about a living phenomenon that hitherto had never awakened his curiosity. "Were you really looking for accommodation?" demanded Mr. Haim suavely. George hesitated. "Yes." "Perhaps I have something that might suit you." Events, disguised as mere words, seemed to George to be pushing him forward. "I should like to have a look at it," he said. He had to say it; there was no alternative. Mr. Haim raised a hand. "Any evening that happens to be convenient." "What about to-night, then?" "Certainly," Mr. Haim agreed. For a moment George apprehended that Mr. Haim was going to invite him to dinner. But Mr. Haim was not going to invite him to dinner. "About nine, shall we say?" he suggested, with a courtliness softer even than usual. Later, George said that he would lock up the office himself and leave the key with the housekeeper. "You can't miss the place," said Mr. Haim on leaving. "It's between the Workhouse and the Redcliffe." II