‘Of course I was pleased to hear this. I had always been pretty smart in the office, but I had never dreamed that I was talked about in the City in this fashion.

‘ “You have a good memory?” said he.

‘ “Pretty fair,” I answered, modestly.

‘ “Have you kept in touch with the market while you have been out of work?” he asked.

‘ “Yes; I read the Stock Exchange List every morning.”

‘ “Now, that shows real application!” he cried. “That is the way to prosper! You won’t mind my testing you, will you? Let me see! How are Ayrshires?”

‘ “One hundred and five, to one hundred and five and a quarter,” I answered.

‘ “And New Zealand Consolidated?”

‘ “A hundred and four.”

‘ “And British Broken Hills?”

‘ “Seven to seven and six.”

‘ “Wonderful!” he cried, with his hands up. “This quite fits in with all that I had heard. My boy, my boy, you are very much too good to be a clerk at Mawson’s!”

‘This outburst rather astonished me, as you can think. “Well,” said I, “other people don’t think quite so much of me as you seem to do, Mr Pinner. I had a hard enough fight to get this berth, and I am very glad to have it.”

‘ “Pooh, man, you should soar above it. You are not in your true sphere. Now, I’ll tell you how it stands with me. What I have to offer is little enough when measured by your ability, but when compared with Mawson’s it is light to dark. Let me see! When do you go to Mawson’s?”

‘ “On Monday.”

‘ “Ha! ha! I think I would risk a little sporting flutter that you don’t go there at all.”

‘ “Not go to Mawson’s?”

‘ “No, sir. By that day you will be the business manager of the Franco-Midland Hardware Company, Limited, with one hundred and thirty-four branches in the towns and villages of France, not counting one in Brussels and one in San Remo.”

‘This took my breath away. “I never heard of it,” said I.

‘ “Very likely not. It has been kept very quiet, for the capital was all privately subscribed, and it is too good a thing to let the public into. My brother, Harry Pinner, is promoter, and joins the board after allotment as managing director. He knew that I was in the swim down here, and he asked me to pick up a good man cheap—a young pushing man, with plenty of snap about him. Parker spoke of you, and that brought me here tonight. We can only offer you a beggarly five hundred to start with—”

‘ “Five hundred a year!” I shouted.

‘ “Only that at the beginning, but you are to have an over-riding commission of 1 per cent on all business done by your agents, and you may take my word for it that this will come to more than your salary.”