had greatly the advantage of me in height, and was thin and aristocratic in appearance. He could not have been less than six feet two.
"Good afternoon, Mr. d'Escombe," he said in a pleasant voice as he shook hands, "it's very good of you to come at such short notice, I'm sure. Will you smoke?" And as he motioned me to a chair he handed me a box of "Sultans," such as I had smoked myself in palmier days. "Would you be so kind, Mr. d'Escombe," he continued rather stiffly, "as to give me some idea why you are seeking such a post as you mention? What references you propose to offer, and what experience, if any, of clerical work you have had?"
My answer to this was, as I had pre-determined, to tell the whole story of my crass stupidity in the past, and thus show my condition in the present.
"You appear to have a rather pleasing capacity for enjoying yourself, Mr. d'Escombe," said he, with a grim smile on his thin face, which showed two gold-stopped teeth through his drooping grey moustache, and which caused at the same time innumerable tiny wrinkles to appear at the corners of his deep-set, calm grey eyes. "But other things being equal, I think you will do for me excellently. You see, I
