"Now we shall require a specimen of the lady's signature," he said as he produced an amazingly obese ledger and indicated where Suzanne was to sign her name. "Remove the glove, please," he added hastily.
"Just like old times in the vestry," said Suzanne to me in a whisper. Then she wrote her name--"Suzanne Désirée Beverley Trumpington-Jones"--all of it. By the time she had finished she had trespassed into several columns reserved for entirely different uses. The Manager surveyed the effect with consternation.
"Rather a long name, isn't it?" he asked diffidently. "I was only wondering if our cheque-forms would accommodate it all."
"Well, I'm not really responsible for it all," she replied. "The Trumpington-Jones part is the more or less permanent result of a serious accident when I was little more than a child. But I might shorten it a bit. I sometimes answer to the name of Soozles, but I suppose that would only do for really intimate cheques. How would 'S. Beverley T.-Jones' do? I shouldn't like to lose the 'Beverley' as it's a kind of family heirloom, and I always use it, even when I'm writing to the sweep."
I edged away to the window and left them to settle the signature question among themselves.
"And what kind of cheques would you like--'Order' or 'Bearer'?" I next heard the Manager asking.
"Show me some patterns, please," commanded Suzanne.
On the wall was a frame containing a number of different cheque varieties, to which her attention was directed.
"Haven't you any other colours?" she asked. "I thought a black-and-yellow cheque would be rather becoming; but don't bother about it if it's not in stock."
She ended by taking one book of blue and one of purple cheques, and with these and a paying-in-book (which she said would do so nicely for spills) we at last departed. From behind the closed door of the private office I distinctly heard a prolonged sigh of relief.
A few days later I came upon Suzanne sitting at her writing-table and examining a cheque with a mystified air.
"I don't quite know," she replied. "I sent Angela this cheque the other day to pay for my ticket for the Law-Courts' Revel, and she says the Bank people have returned it to her. And it's marked 'R.D.' in red ink. Who is 'R.D.'?"