With equal obstinacy I determined, sooner or later, to get my information.
I took service under Mr. Pickup, purposing to make myself essential to his
prosperity, in a commercial sense--and then to threaten him with offering my
services to a rival manufacturer of Old Masters, unless he trusted me with the
secret of the name and address. My plan looked promising enough at the time.
But, as some wise person has said, Man is the sport of circumstances. Mr.
Pickup and I parted company unexpectedly, on compulsion. And, of all the
people in the world, my grandmother, Lady Malkinshaw, was the unconscious
first cause of the events which brought me and the beloved object together
again, for the third time!
