“I’ve been watching you,” she went on, sipping her port, “and it occurs to me that we might do business together.”

Here indeed was an adventure! I felt myself on the threshold of a great discovery. What sort of business could the lady of the plush coat have with me?

“You might sell on commission. I’d offer you quite good terms, and you’d find a ready market for the goods.”

She produced a brown paper parcel and showed me a collection of cigarette cases, matchboxes, pencil cases, all of them very neatly made in attractive-looking metal, brightly burnished. I discovered that this class of goods, made in Germany, can be bought wholesale at a very low figure.

“I’ll give you twenty-five percent commission on everything you sell according to my listed price, and fifty percent of all that you get over. You ought to get a good deal over,” she added, “as I say, you can sell well.”