“Bredon went to Balliol
And sat at the feet of Gamaliel,”
chanted Mr. Garrett, closing his book.
“And just as he ought
He cared for nought,”
added Miss Meteyard. “I defy you to find another rhyme for Balliol.”
“Flittermouse, Tom Pinch, Fly-by-Night…”
“And his language was sesquipedalial.”
“It isn’t sesquipedalial, it’s sesquipedalian.”
“Brother!”
“Twist those papers up tight, duckie. Put them in the lid of the biscuit-tin. Damn! that’s Mr. Armstrong’s buzzer. Stick a saucer over my coffee. Where’s my note-book?”
“… two double-faults running, so I said…”
“… I can’t find the carbon of that Magnolia whole-treble…”
“… started at fifty to one…”
“Who’s bagged my scissors?”
“Excuse me, Mr. Armstrong wants his Nutrax carbons…”
“… and shake ’em up well…”
“… hail you all, impale you all, jail you all…”
“Mr. Ingleby, can you spare me a moment?”
At Mr. Hankin’s mildly sarcastic accents, the scene dislimned as by magic. The door-post drapers and Miss Parton’s bosom-friend melted out into passage, Mr. Willis, rising hurriedly with the tray of carbons in his hand, picked a paper out at random and frowned furiously at it, Miss Parton’s cigarette dropped unostentatiously to the floor, Mr. Garrett, unable to get rid of his coffee-cup, smiled vaguely and tried to look as though he had picked it up by accident and didn’t know it was there, Miss Meteyard, with great presence of mind, put the sweet counterfoils on a chair and sat on them, Miss Rossiter, clutching Mr. Armstrong’s carbons in her hand, was able to look businesslike, and did so. Mr. Ingleby alone, disdaining pretence, set down his cup with a slightly impudent smile and advanced to obey his chief’s command.
“This,” said Mr. Hankin, tactfully blind to all evidences of disturbance, “is Mr. Bredon. You will-er-show him what he has to do. I have had the Dairyfields’ guard-books sent along to his room. You might start him on margarine. Er-I don’t think Mr. Ingleby was up in your time, Mr. Bredon-he was at Trinity. Your Trinity, I mean, not ours.” (Mr. Hankin was a Cambridge man.)
Mr. Bredon extended a well-kept hand.
“How do you do?”
“How do you do?” echoed Mr. Ingleby. They gazed at one another with the faint resentment of two cats at their first meeting. Mr. Hankin smiled kindly at them both.
“And when you’ve produced some ideas on margarine, Mr. Bredon, bring them along to my room and we’ll go over them.”
“Right-ho!” said Mr. Bredon, simply.
Mr. Hankin smiled again and padded gently away.
“Well, you’d better know everybody,” said Mr. Ingleby, rapidly. “Miss Rossiter and Miss Parton are our guardian angels-type our copy, correct our grammar, provide us with pencils and paper and feed us on coffee and cake. Miss Parton is the blonde and Miss Rossiter the brunette. Gentlemen prefer blondes but personally I find them both equally seraphic.”
Mr. Bredon bowed.
“Miss Meteyard-of Somerville. One of the brighter ornaments of our department. She makes the vulgarest limericks ever recited within these chaste walls.”
“Then we shall be friends,” said Mr. Bredon cordially.
“Mr. Willis on your right, Mr. Garrett on your left-both comrades in affliction. That is the whole department, except Mr. Hankin and Mr. Armstrong who are directors, and Mr. Copley, who is a man of weight and experience and does not come and frivol in the typists’ room. He goes out for his elevenses, and assumes seniority though he hath it not.”
Mr. Bredon grasped the hands extended to him and murmured politely.
“Would you like to be in on the Derby sweep?” inquired Miss Rossiter, with an eye to the cash-box. “You’re just in time for the draw.”
“Oh, rather,” said Mr. Bredon. “How much?”
“Sixpence.”
“Oh, yes, rather. I mean, it’s jolly good of you. Of course, absolutely-must be in on the jolly old sweep, what?”
“That brings the first prize up to a pound precisely,” said Miss Rossiter, with a grateful sigh. “I was afraid I should have to take two tickets myself. Type Mr. Bredon’s for him, Parton. B,R,E,D,O,N-like summer-time on Bredon?”
“That’s right.”
Miss Parton obligingly typed the name and added another blank ticket to the collection in the biscuit-box.
“Well, I suppose I’d better take you along to your dog-kennel,” said Mr. Ingleby, with gloom.
“Right-ho!” said Mr. Bredon. “Oh, rather. Yes.”
“We’re all along this corridor,” added Mr. Ingleby, leading the way. “You’ll find your way about in time. That’s Garrett’s room and that’s Willis’s, and this is yours, between Miss Meteyard and me. That iron staircase opposite me goes down to the floor below; mostly group managers and conference rooms. Don’t fall down it, by the way. The man whose room you’ve got tumbled down it last week and killed himself.”
“No, did he?” said Mr. Bredon, startled.
“Bust his neck and cracked his skull,” said Mr. Ingleby. “On one of those knobs.”
“Why do they put knobs on staircases?” expostulated Mr. Bredon. “Cracking fellows’ skulls for them? It’s not right.”
“No, it isn’t,” said Miss Rossiter, arriving with her hands full of scribbling-blocks and blotting-paper. “They’re supposed to prevent the boys from sliding down the hand-rail, but it’s the stairs themselves that are so-oh, I say, push on. There’s Mr. Armstrong coming up. They don’t like too much being said about the iron staircase.”
“Well, here you are,” said Mr. Ingleby, adopting this advice. “Much the same as the rest, except that the radiator doesn’t work very well. Still, that won’t worry you just at present. This was Dean’s room.”
“Chap who fell downstairs?”
“Yes.”
Mr. Bredon gazed round the small apartment, which contained a table, two chairs, a rickety desk and a bookshelf, and said:
“Oh!”
“It was awful,” said Miss Rossiter.
“It must have been,” agreed Mr. Bredon, fervently.
“Mr. Armstrong was just giving me dictation when we heard the most frightful crash. He said, ‘Good God, what’s that?’ I thought it must be one of the boys, because one of them fell down last year carrying an Elliot-Fisher typewriter and it sounded exactly like it, only worse. And I said, ‘I think one of the boys must have fallen downstairs, Mr. Armstrong,’ and he said, ‘Careless little devil,’ and went on dictating and my hand was so shaky I could hardly make my outlines and then Mr. Ingleby ran past and Mr. Daniels’ door opened and then we heard the most terrific shriek, and Mr. Armstrong said, ‘Better go and see what’s happened,’ so I went out and looked down and I couldn’t see anything because there was such a bunch of people standing round and then Mr. Ingleby came tearing up, with such a look on his face-you were as white as a sheet, Mr. Ingleby, you really were.”
“Possibly,” said Mr. Ingleby, a little put out. “Three years in this soul-searing profession have not yet robbed me of all human feeling. But that will come in time.”
“Mr. Ingleby said, ‘He’s killed himself!’ And I said, ‘Who?’ and he said, ‘Mr. Dean,’ and I said, ‘You don’t mean that,’ and he said, ‘I’m afraid so,’ and I went back to Mr. Armstrong and said, ‘Mr. Dean’s killed himself,’ and he said, ‘What do you mean, killed himself?’ and then Mr. Ingleby came in and Mr. Armstrong gave one look at him and went out and I went down by the other staircase and saw them carrying Mr. Dean along to the board-room and his head was all hanging sideways.”
“Does this kind of thing happen often?” inquired Mr. Bredon.
“Not with such catastrophic results,” replied Mr. Ingleby, “but that staircase is definitely a death-trap.”
“I fell down it myself one day,” said Miss Rossiter, “and tore the heels off both my shoes. It was awfully awkward, because I hadn’t another pair in the place and-”