back I shall have thought of something witty!"

This made Pemberton say to himself "After all he's rather nice."




CHAPTER II


On the Friday he saw them all, as Mrs. Moreen had promised, for her
husband had come back and the girls and the other son were at home. Mr.
Moreen had a white moustache, a confiding manner and, in his buttonhole,
the ribbon of a foreign order--bestowed, as Pemberton eventually learned,
for services. For what services he never clearly ascertained: this was a
point--one of a large number--that Mr. Moreen's manner never confided.
What it emphatically did confide was that he was even more a man of the
world than you might first make out. Ulick, the firstborn, was in
visible training for the same profession--under the disadvantage as yet,
however, of a buttonhole but feebly floral and a moustache with no
pretensions to type. The girls had hair and figures and manners and
small fat feet, but had never been out alone. As for Mrs. Moreen
Pemberton saw on a nearer view that her elegance was intermittent and her
parts didn't always match. Her husband, as she had promised, met with
enthusiasm Pemberton's ideas in regard to a salary. The young man had
endeavoured to keep these stammerings modest, and Mr. Moreen made it no
secret that _he_ found them wanting in "style." He further mentioned
that he aspired to be intimate with his children, to be their best
friend, and that he was always looking out for them. That was what he
went off for, to London and other places--to look out; and this vigilance