The Wimbledon tournament now being over, in which Tommy Clinton had survived but two rounds, that young gentleman was only too free to devote his time to Ben, and it was therefore the more galling to him to find her so busy. He called so frequently that Mr. Harford was constrained to mention the fact.

"You will excuse me, Miss Staveley," he said one afternoon after Tommy had left, "but would you mind if we put a ladder against the wall for your friend to come and leave by?"

"Which friend?" Ben asked.

"The affable gent in the Panama hat," said Mr. Harford, "who is here most days and walks through our modest but well-conducted premises as if they were a pig-sty. We don't mind a man despising the treasures of literature; reading is, after all, a matter of taste; but we do bar the way he scowls at us. Even Pat, mild and tolerant as he is, almost squared up to him to-day. My own idea is to exchange this poor little creature here—who shares the besetting sin of all spaniels in being too ready to make indiscriminate friends—for a man-eating mastiff. What's his quarrel with us, anyway? Does he dislike us personally or did a book seller once try to do him in?"

Ben laughed. "Poor Tommy!" she said. "Be a little patient, he's going back to Madeira next week."

"An excellent place for him," said Mr. Harford.

Ben herself found Tommy rather a trial, for he not only looked at her with such hungry hopelessness, but he took up a great deal of valuable time.

His next visit was a veritable ordeal.

"Look here, Ben," he said, "I've been working for you since I was here last and I think you'll agree that I've been rather useful. Of course I hate your being in this business—the very phrase 'Beck and Call' makes me sick, for a girl like you too!—and being mixed up with those two fellows downstairs. By the way, the lame one sings too: something about his 'Bonnie,' confound him! Well, since you're set on sticking to business, and since you won't do what I ask, I want to help you to be more comfortable and more successful. So I've been nosing about and I've found you some really good premises in a central part, far removed from this back-alley and those musical shopkeepers downstairs."

"What ever do you mean?" Ben demanded, her colour rising dangerously.

"Just what I have said," Tommy replied. "I have found you some really good premises. In Dover Street. Close to the big hotels, close to Piccadilly, and approached from the street direct by a staircase. Very important, that."

"My dear boy, no doubt you meant it very well," said Ben, with some temper, "but I can't have my affairs interfered with like this. I have a lease here, for one thing; for another, it has become well known. For another, I don't want to move. Dover Street, no doubt, is a good position; but I can't afford Dover Street. This is cheap and central enough. I hope you haven't committed yourself at all."

"I've got an option," said Tommy.

"Then please oblige me by instantly getting rid of it," said Ben.

"As to the higher rent," said Tommy, "you'd make that up in a jiffy when people found you had a separate entrance and didn't have to go through a shop."

"Please get rid of it instantly," said Ben. "I shan't have a moment's peace of mind till you do. I'll come down with you," she said, with a sudden foreboding of an explosion below.

"Oh, Ben," said Tommy, miserably, "and I did want to help you! All right," he added angrily, "I'll go. And I may as well say good-bye now instead of next week. Good-bye."

"But I'm coming down with you all the same," said Ben.