"Very."
"Your eloquence on feminine perfection seems to be restricted to one word, Mackeller. And so this fascinating personage has persuaded you that you can successfully cross swords with the unconquered P. G. Flannigan, against whom even the United States Government has been powerless? After that I shall set no limit to what a woman can do."
But Peter went on unabashed.
"Miss Sarsfield-Mitcham's father, some years ago, came to England in an attempt to form a company to sell a typewriter invented by him, and which, to confess the truth, he had already lost control of. He got into business relations with my father, then in the stockbroking profession, and although nothing practical came of their endeavours—which was rather typical of Mr. Sarsfield-Mitcham's affairs—my father gradually formed a sincere attachment for the man."
"Whose experience hitherto had been with legal attachments!"
Mackeller continued stolidly, unheeding.
"Miss Sarsfield-Mitcham, then as now, was her father's assistant, and as they were concerned with a typewriter, she learned shorthand and typewriting, and became an expert stenographer. When, a few months ago, she saw a new financial crisis approaching which threatened to block her father's line of progress and nullify all his work of the past
