Fact'ry 'Ands by Edward Dyson

THERE were premonitions of important happenings, and the Beauties were much concerned. Large cases of an unfamiliar kind had come up the lift, and, with much grunting, had been shot on rollers into a commanding position on the flat, under the eye of Odgson himself, who stood for a quarter of an hour after with his belltopper on the back of his head and his hands plunged in his trousers, looking hard at the cases, and barking curt remarks at the junior partner, a fair fat, curly man, with the ingratiating manners of a commercial traveller. The latter's air when among the Beauties was that of a man of a frivolous and affectionate disposition, whose natural tendencies had to be rigorously repressed out of respect for the position he held. His name was Duff. The girls called him Suety, and many other things more or less relevant.

Later, a space was cleared in the middle of the flat, and several times a day Spats came up, and looked at this cleared space critically, with his eminently respectable hat at the same angle, and his hands hard in his pockets. On a few occasions the junior partner assisted, but only the initiated could make anything of the boss's conversation, it being usually a series of short and sudden barks and growls, with an occasional breathless word breaking through.