It strikes you as childish, Mr. Gillingham? Ah, you never knew Mark Ablett.

“How, Cay, how?” he said eagerly.

“Well, I haven’t really thought it out,” I protested. “It was just an idea.”

He began to think it out for himself.

“I might pretend to be a manager, come down to see her⁠—but I suppose she knows them all. What about an interviewer?”

“It’s going to be difficult,” I said thoughtfully. “You’ve got rather a characteristic face, you know. And your beard⁠—”

“I’d shave it off,” he snapped.

“My dear Mark!”