Amongst the directors, however, disunion meant safety to the manager; and as no two of them ever agreed, Mr. Forde had found it a matter of little difficulty to set the whole of them so utterly by the ears on some utterly unimportant point that the unsatisfactory clients were for the time forgotten.
Still Mr. Forde knew that the subject must crop up again sooner or later, and he meant to lead the tardy debtors a weary life until "he had something tangible to show his directors."
The second matter was more serious. After the last of his directors had left, a gentleman tall, dignified, and elderly, inquired in the outer office if he could speak to Mr. Forde.
"Certainly not," Mr. Forde said in answer to the clerk who asked if he were at liberty, "I can see no one at present."
Mr. Forde was not engaged in any matter of the slightest importance, but this was one of his devices for maintaining the dignity of position.
Amongst the recent chronicles of St. Vedast's Wharf was a legend that on one occasion an entire stranger to the Company and the manager, finding the outer office unoccupied, penetrated to the inner _sanctum_ and there surprised Mr. Forde industriously reading the 'Times.'
Whereupon the manager rose and said, "How dare you sir, come in here? I must request you to leave my office immediately."
But the stranger stood his ground. "Don't excite yourself, pray. I have come to speak to you about a little matter of business, and I can wait until you are cool. I am going to take a seat, and if you follow my advice you will do the same."
And suiting his action to the word, the madman, as Mr. Forde afterwards called him, pulled forward a chair, sat down and calmly eyed the manager until that gentleman asked, "What the----he wanted?"
Mr. Forde's present visitor was, however, a man of a different stamp.
"Take my card to Mr. Forde," he said, "and ask him to name an hour this afternoon when he will be at leisure."
Now the name engraved on the card was that of a City magnate, and Mr. Forde at once with many apologies came out to greet him.
In the revulsion of his feelings he would have shaken hands, but the visitor failed to perceive his intention; neither did he make any answer to Mr. Forde's inquiries as to what he could do for him until they stood together in the private office with the door shut.