CHAPTER III‘Mister Gumbril!’ Surprise was mingled with delight. ‘This is indeed a pleasure!’ Delight was now the prevailing emotion expressed by the voice that advanced, as yet without a visible source, from the dark recesses of the shop.
‘The pleasure, Mr Bojanus, is mine.’ Gumbril closed the shop door behind him.
A very small man, dressed in a frock-coat, popped out from a canyon that opened, a mere black crevice, between two stratified precipices of mid-season suitings, and advancing into the open space before the door bowed with an old-world grace, revealing a nacreous scalp thinly mantled with long, damp creepers of brown hair.
‘And to what, may I ask, do I owe this pleasure, sir?’ Mr Bojanus looked up archly with a sideways c**k of his head that tilted the rigid points of his waxe
