It was clear to him that some service or other was expected of him, and it was obviously his game therefore to hang back and not appear to be too eager to enter into young Girdlestone's views.

When he presented himself at the entrance of Nelson's Cafe the young merchant had been fuming and chafing in the sitting-room for five and twenty minutes.
It was a dingy apartment, with a single large horse-hair chair and half a dozen small wooden dittoes, placed with mathematical precision along the walls.

A square table in the centre and a shabby mirror over the mantelpiece completed the furniture.

With the instinct of an old campaigner the major immediately dropped into the arm-chair, and, leaning luxuriously back, took a cigar from his case and proceeded to light it.

Ezra Girdlestone seated himself near the table and twisted his dark moustache, as was his habit when collecting himself.
"What will you drink ?" he asked, "Anything that's going." "Fetch in a decanter of brandy and some seltzer water," said Ezra to the waiter; "then shut the door and leave us entirely to ourselves." When the liquor was placed upon the table he drank off his first glass at a gulp, and then refilled it.