"The chap gave me a decidedly odd look. 'Mr. Sabre's not attending the
office at present, sir.'

"'Not attending the office? Not ill, is he?'

"'No, not ill, I think, sir. Not attending the office. Perhaps you'd
like to see one of the partners?'

"I looked at him. He looked at me. What the devil did he mean? Just then
I caught sight of an old bird I knew slightly coming down the stairs
with a book under his arm. Old chap called Bright. Sort of foreman or
something. Looked rather like Moses coming down the mountain with the
Tables of Stone in his fist. I said in my cheery way, 'Hullo, Mr.
Bright. Good morning. I was just inquiring for Mr. Sabre.'

"By Jove, I thought for a minute the old patriarch was going to heave
the tables of stone at my head. He caught up the book in both his hands
and gave a sort of choke and blazed at me out of his eyes--by gad, I
might have been poor old Aaron caught jazzing round the golden calf.

"'Let me tell you, sir, this is no place to inquire after Mr. Sabre,'
said he. 'Let me tell you--'

"Well, I'd ha' let him tell me any old thing. That was what I was there
for. But he shut himself up with a kind of gasp and cannoned himself
into his tabernacle under the stairs and left me there, wondering if I
was where I thought I was, or had got into a moving-picture show by
mistake. The clerk had fallen through the floor or something. I was
alone. Friendless. Nobody wanted me. I thought to myself, 'Percival, old
man, you're on the unpopular side of the argument. You're nonsuited, old
man.' And I thought I wouldn't take any more chances in this Biblical
film, not with old father Abraham Fortune or Friend Judas Iscariot
Twyning; I thought I'd push out to Penny Green and see old Sabre for
myself.

"So I did. I certainly did....

"You can imagine me, old man, in my natty little blue suit, tripping up
the path of Sabre's house and guessing to myself that the mystery wasn't
a mystery at all, but only the office perhaps rather fed up with Sabre
for staying away nursing his game leg so long. By Jove, it wasn't that.
House had rather a neglected appearance, I thought. Door knob not
polished, or blinds still down somewhere or something. I don't know.
Something. And what made me conscious of it was that I was kept a long
time waiting after I'd rung the bell. In fact, I had to ring twice. Then
I heard some one coming, and you know how your mind unconsciously
expects things and so gives you quite a star