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‘I flew around like mad to get ready, and before forty-eight hours I was crossing the Channel to show myself to my employers, and sign the contract. In а very few hours I arrived in а city that always makes me think of а whited sepulchre. Prejudice no doubt. I had no difficulty in finding the Company’s offices. It was the biggest thing in the town, and everybody I met was full of it. They were going to run an over-sea empire, and make no end of coin by trade.

‘A narrow and deserted street in deep shadow, high houses, innumerable windows with venetian blinds, а dead silence, grass sprouting right and left, immense double doors standing ponderously ajar. I slipped through one of these cracks, went up а swept and ungarnished staircase, as arid as а desert, and opened the first door I came to. Two women, one fat and the other slim, sat on straw-bottomed chairs, knitting black wool. The slim one got up and walked straight at me – still knitting with downcast eyes – and only just as I began to think of getting out of her way, as you would for а somnambulist, stood still, and looked up. Her dress was as plain as an umbrella-cover, and she turned round without а word and preceded me into а waiting-room. I gave my name, and looked about. Deal table in the middle, plain chairs all round the walls, on one end а large shining map, marked with all the colours of а rainbow. There was а vast amount of red – good to see at any time, because one knows that some real work is done in there, а deuce of а lot of blue, а little green, smears of orange, and, on the East Coast, а purple patch, to show where the jolly pioneers of progress drink the jolly lager-beer. However, I wasn’t going into any of these. I was going into the yellow. Dead in the centre. And the river was there – fascinating – deadly – like а snake. Ough! а door opened, а white-haired secretarial head, but wearing а compassionate expression, appeared, and а skinny forefinger beckoned me into the sanctuary. Its light was dim, and а heavy writing-desk squatted in the middle. From behind that structure came out an impression of pale plumpness in а frock-coat. The great man himself. He was five feet six, I should judge, and had his grip on the handle-end of ever so many millions. He shook hands, I fancy, murmured vaguely, was satisfied with my French. BON VOYAGE.