It seemed to me that, allowing for wind and weather, the scales should have fallen from old Sippy’s eyes by about three-fifteen, Greenwich mean time; so, having prowled around Covent Garden among the spuds and cabbages for twenty minutes or so, I retraced my steps and pushed up the stairs. I went in at the door marked Private, fully expecting to see old Sippy, and conceive of my astonishment and chagrin when I found on entering only the bloke Waterbury. He was seated at Sippy’s desk, reading a paper, as if the place belonged to him.
And, moreover, there was of flour on his person not a trace.
“Great Scott!” I said.
It was a case of the sunken road, after all. But, dash it, how could I have been expected to take into consideration the possibility that this cove, head master though he was, would have had the cold nerve to walk into Sippy’s private office instead of pushing in a normal and orderly manner through the public door?
He raised the nose, and focused me over it.
“Yes?”
“I was looking for old Sippy.”
“ Mr. Sipperley has not yet arrived.”
He spoke with a good deal of pique, seeming to be a man who was not used to being kept waiting.
“Well, how is everything?” I said, to ease things along.
He had started reading again. He looked up as if he found me pretty superfluous.
“I beg your pardon?”