"Here's Mr. Boon, our senior partner," said Mr. Smith, with an irritation in his voice that he could not conceal, and that now gave Mr. Boon his cue.
"You wish to see me?" Mr. Boon asked it very coldly, ready to say no.
"You have an annoying set of clerks here," said the fur-coated stranger. "I wished to see one of the firm and--"
"You see him now," interrupted Mr. Boon, letting the words drop out with an effect of broken icicles. "I am Mr. Boon."
"My good man, I came after some pearl necklaces and a few rings, and trinkets. Do make haste! I am Colonel Lowther."
"Indeed! Well, what if you are Colonel Lowther?"
In Mr. Boon's eyes was a look that made all the clerks in the store busy themselves with their own affairs. Explosions scatter dangerous fragments that may injure lookers-on. The fur-coated Englishman stared at the sizzling jeweler in amazement.
"Damme!" he sputtered. "Do you mean to say--Oh--I see! Yes! I am the secretary of the Duke of Connaught. The jewels are for his Royal Highness."
The change was instantaneous and magical. They all understood now, and forgave. There wasn't a clerk in the store who did not stare with unchecked interest at the fur-coated member of the royal party, concerning which the newspapers were printing columns and columns.
The man opened his coat, took a card from a Russia-leather case, which he gave to Mr. Boon.
"Colonel the Honorable H. C. Lowther, K.C.B.," it read, "Private Secretary to H. R. H. the Duke of Connaught."
"Colonel Lowther," said Mr. Boon, in a voice from which all the icicles had melted and turned into warm honey, "I regret exceedingly that you have had to wait. Had I known you were here, or if you had only mentioned who you were--"
"Exactly so. Yes! And now I'll have a few words with you in private, Boon."
The colonel could not know that Mr. Boon was not a misterless Bond Street tradesman, but a millionaire expert in gems and human vanity. So Boon forgave the omission of "Mr." and magnanimously said, "This way, Colonel Lowther, please!"
In the office Mr. Boon opened a box of his good cigars--and they were very good, indeed--and held it toward the colonel, who took one with his gloved hands, lit it at the flame of the match which Mr. Boon himself held for him, and puffed away, with never a "Thank you."