16
HAVING RECEIVED no telephone message from Mr Jackson, the lawyer, by ten o’clock the following morning, Richardson decided to go via Southampton Street on his way down to Ealing. He found the senior partner as good as his word: he was in his chair by that hour.
“You’ve had no answer yet to your cable, Mr Jackman?”
“No, Mr Richardson, but I’m expecting one any minute. Have you anything to tell me about that young man?”
“The young man of studious habits? Yes, I have. A certain informant who knows him tried last night to interest him in discussing English literature. The young man had never heard of George Bernard Shaw, and he believed H.G. Wells to be an inventor of a cure for the liver. Further, he admitted that he never read anything but newspapers, and his companion upset his glass
