Explore "Jacob's Ladder" by E. Phillips Oppenheim on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
At twelve o'clock, Jacob was in Regent Street, and at one o'clock, in a new blue serge suit, shirt, collar and tie of the latest pattern, he was dividing his time between admiring his reflection in the mirror and waiting in the entrance hall of Simpson's. Dauncey's coming was, in its way, pathetic. With a pessimism engendered by years of misfortune, he had found it impossible to preserve throughout the morning the exultation of those first few minutes with Jacob in the railway carriage. He entered the restaurant and came towards his friend with a feverish light in his eyes and a trembling of the lips which the latter only too well understood.
"It's all right, old fellow," Jacob assured him emphatically. "Throw in your hat with mine. Here's our table -- two cocktails waiting, you see, and a bottle of the best the place has -- I tell you the old gentleman in Threadneedle Street parted without a murmur. I'm simply bursting with money -- Steady, old chap!"