The young nobleman did not receive the elderly capitalist in his business office downstairs, as perhaps would have been the more suitable, but greeted him instead in the ample and luxurious drawing-room on the first floor, where Stranleigh, enjoying the liberty of a bachelor, was smoking an after-luncheon cigar, and he began the interview by offering a similar one to his visitor, which was declined. Mr. Schwartzbrod, it seemed, never smoked. The furtive old man was palpably nervous and ill at ease. He sat on the extreme edge of an elegant chair, and appeared not to know exactly what to do with his hands. The news which had reached him from Sparling & Bilge in Southampton, that Lord Stranleigh was the new owner of the _Rajah_, had disquieted Schwartzbrod, and his manner showed this to his indolent host, who lounged back in an easy-chair, calmly viewing the newcomer with an expression of countenance that was almost cherublike in its innocence. [Illustration: 0247] “Sorry you don’t smoke,” drawled the younger man. “You miss a great deal of pleasure in life by your abstention.” “It is a habit I never acquired, my lord, and so perhaps I do not feel the lack of it so much as one accustomed to tobacco might suppose. I lead a very busy life, and, indeed, a somewhat anxious one, since times are so bad in the city, therefore I have little opportunity of cultivating what I might call--I hope with no offense--the smaller vices.” “Ah, there speaks a large trader. You go in for the big things in life, whether in finance or in vice.” “I hope I may say without vanity, my lord, that I have always avoided vice, large or small.” “Lucky man; I wish I could make the same confession. So times are bad in the city, are they?” “Yes, they are.” “Then why don’t you chuck the city, and come and live in the West End where life is easy?” “A rich man may live where he pleases, my lord, but I have been a hard worker all my life.” “Poor, but honest, eh? Still, when all’s said and done, Mr. Schwartzbrod, I really believe that you hard workers enjoy your money better when you get it than we leisurely people who have never known the lack of it. I believe in honesty myself, and if I were not of so indolent a nature, I think I might perhaps have become an honest man. But a busy laborer like yourself, Mr. Schwartzbrod, has not come to the West End to hear me talk platitudes about honesty. In America the man goes West who intends to work hard. In London a man comes west when he has made money. “‘You miss a great deal of pleasure in life.’” “He has his pile in the city, and expects to cease work. You have come west temporarily to see me about some matter which the telephone delighted in mixing up with buzzings and rattlings and intermittent chattering that made your theme difficult to comprehend. Perhaps you will be good enough to let me know in what way I may serve you.”