which I--er--wish to consult you."

"Those American invoices--"

"Nothing to do with business at all," Mr. Weatherley interrupted,
ruthlessly. "A little private matter."

"Indeed, sir?" Mr. Jarvis interjected.

"The fact is," Mr. Weatherley blundered on, with considerable
awkwardness, for he hated the whole affair, "my wife--Mrs.
Weatherley, you know--is giving a party this evening--having some
friends to dinner first, and then some other people coming to
bridge. We are a man short for dinner. Mrs. Weatherley told me to
get some one at the club--telephoned down here just an hour ago."

Mr. Weatherley paused. Mr. Jarvis did his best to grasp the
situation, but failed. All that he could do was to maintain his
attitude of intelligent interest.

"I don't know any one at the club," continued his employer,
irritably. "I feel like a fish out of water there, and that's the
truth, Mr. Jarvis. It's a good club. I got elected there--well,
never mind how--but it's one thing to be a member of a club, and
quite another to get to know the men there. You understand that, Mr.
Jarvis."

Mr. Jarvis, however, did not understand it. He could conceive of no
spot in the city of London, or its immediate neighborhood, where Mr.
Samuel Weatherley, head of the firm of Messrs. Weatherley & Co.,