Sabby?"
"I savvy, right enough," said I, "but all the same you have got to take
my card in to Mr. Camber."
I handed him a card as I spoke, and suddenly addressing him in
"pidgin," of which, fortunately, I had a smattering:
"Belong very quick, Ah Tsong," I said, sharply, "or plenty big trouble,
savvy?"
"Sabby, sabby," he muttered, nodding his head; and leaving me standing
in the porch he retired along the sparsely carpeted hall.
This hall was very gloomily lighted, but I could see several pieces of
massive old furniture and a number of bookcases, all looking incredibly
untidy.
Rather less than a minute elapsed, I suppose, when from some place at
the farther end of the hallway Mr. Camber appeared in person. He wore a
threadbare dressing gown, the silken collar and cuffs of which were
very badly frayed. His hair was dishevelled and palpably he had not
shaved this morning.
He was smoking a corncob pipe, and he slowly approached, glancing from
the card which he held in his hand in my direction, and then back again
at the card, with a curious sort of hesitancy. In spite of his untidy
appearance I could not fail to mark the dignity of his bearing, and the
almost arrogant angle at which he held his head.
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