“I remember—D.B.A.N., seen those initials times enough. What’s the D? Oh, boil me! I’m going to laugh—I can’t—my head’ll split—” Beddoes’ amusement was squeezed out in anguished semi-groans, he held his hands to his head.
“Goodbye,” said Nightingale penitently. “I’m a disturbing influence. I’m sorry. But I quite agree. It’s just a shade better to be referred to in combination as Night and Bed.”
He saw as he walked away that the hands of the clock on the wall stood at five to midnight.
Part Two
December the Twenty-Third
Mr. Majendie’s office, at which Nightingale presented himself the following morning, was a small and not too tidy room, the dead end of a corridor at the back of the premises. Nightingale imagined that Majendie had occupied these rather cramped quarters when he was a junior partner, and had adhered to them from habit or affection. No doubt he also intended their pokiness and old-fashioned furniture to correct any sense of awe or caution which might have been instilled in visitors passing through the impressive shop. This room seemed to establish that the firm, although it dealt in such exotic and sumptuous commerce, was at heart an intimate family business, in which prevailed the highest standards of integrity, courtesy and personal service; that here affairs were conducted in the spirit of a more generous age, even perhaps in a slight, homely muddle. And ensconcing himself in this little den, Majendie added another stroke to the delineation of his official character—the hamster scuffling in a nest of papers. Nightingale thought how amusing it would be to introduce a real hamster into the room and let it get to work at tearing up and stuffing into its bulging pouches all Majendie’s correspondence.
“Ah, Mr. Nightingale,” said Mr. Majendie, smiling cherubically. “Good morning—you know, it seems to me that in shortening our matutinal greeting we have improved in the earlier form. ‘Give you good morning’ on a day like this, for example, would be a superfluous, meaningless wish. Glorious weather. Whereas ‘Good morning’ is an enthusiastic affirmation of fact. I suppose in the case of bad weather ‘Give you good morning’ expresses a pious hope—but it would be more practical to substitute ‘us’ for ‘you’, a sort of mutual commiseration being thereby implanted in the petition—”
“In this country,” said Nightingale, keeping his patience with an effort, “it might be as well to leave out weather conditions and let the greeting mean a wish for a good morning’s work.”
“Very sensible, my dear sir. Shall we to business?” He lifted a sheet of paper from under a small baboon carved in a smoky semi-opaque stone. Nightingale’s eye passed from this engaging object to a book which lay near it. He felt a little surprise. ‘Common Law for the Common Man’ was not a title he would have expected to commend itself to Majendie.