But presently these antagonisms died away. Francis proved a first-rate, if eccentric, office boy, and Miss Ulick reported as much to Mr Graby, who grunted. His common sense would have preferred that the pale, flashy, stuck-up boy should have proved a failure, but another part of his nature was pleased. He told Uncle Preston that his nephew was getting on well; and Uncle Preston was very surprised.

Had he not told Auntie Loo, Aunt Maxine and Aunt Grace that Francis, poor boy, had no sticking power (just like his unhappy father) and would probably be sacked at the end of the first week?

The unspoken but calm acceptance of Francis by Mr Graby and Miss Ulick gradually percolated throughout the building, and made the small fry also accept him, without bitterness. The large fry, of course, never came in contact with him. Then it was observed by the sharp eyes of Miss Beryl Cannard that Francis’s overcoat was not so smart as the famous suit: it was a schoolboy’s overcoat, rough and worn and shapeless, and though Francis wore it with a dark red silk scarf and an air, it made him look much younger and less cocksure. He was not so well off, then, as it had at first appeared!

And presently, without affectation or pathos, he told Miss Ulick that he had no father and mother, that they had been unhappy together, and had both died less than a year ago. This statement, which was made simply enough in the course of a gossip over tea one afternoon, moved Miss Ulick, and she asked him if he had been left badly off, and Francis, who was not a money snob either, told her exactly how much money he and Sophia and Harry had.

True, he boasted a little about the three thousand pounds, but Miss Ulick, a sensible woman, saw that this was as yet fairy gold and was not impressed. As soon as she knew that it was really necessary for Francis to earn his own living and found that he was ambitious, she became very fond of him and her attitude affected that of Miss Bates, Miss Cannard and Miss Forbes. They were all much kinder to him.

They found his story strangely pathetic; the idea of the three young orphans living together in their little house fascinated the typists. They kept on telling Francis how sad it was, which made Francis extremely angry, as in his opinion he and Sophia and Harry were having the time of their lives. It was not sad to be an orphan when you were much happier than when your parents had been alive.

Anything, even death (he tried to explain to the shocked typists) was preferable to the kind of family life which he had endured in those last years before his parents died. He had, he told them, an awful sort of feeling left over from his youth (this was the word he used), a feeling as though he could never go back and try to make things better for his father and mother, a feeling of shock and bitterness; and he still missed his mother very much, and his father too, in a queer way. But he was not unhappy because they were dead. If he could bring them back … he hesitated. Well, certainly he would not want his father back, and his mother would not be happy without his father, and anyway, they were dead and nothing could bring them back. Things were as they were; and that was all there was to it.