“So you have,” admits Ham.  “I suppose I should have said so before.  As a valet you’re a wonder.  You’ve got a lot of sense, too.  So why insist now on my doing the impossible?  You know very well I can’t lay my hands on a dollar.”

“But there’s your friend Mr. Ellins,” says Nivens.

Ham Adams looks over at me.  “I say,” says he, “won’t Bob stand for more than a hundred?  Are you sure?”

“He only sent that in case you was sick,” says I.

“You see?” says Ham, turnin’ to Nivens.  “We’ve got to worry along the best we can until things brighten up.  I may have to sell off some of these things.”

A cold near-smile flickers across Nivens’ thin lips.

“You hadn’t thought of taking a position, had you, sir?” he asks insinuatin’.

“Position!” echoes Ham.  “Me?  Why, I never did any kind of work—­don’t know how.  Tell me, who do you think would give me a job at anything?”

“Since you’ve asked, sir,” says Nivens, “why, I might, sir.”

Ham Adams lets out a gasp.

“You!” says he.

“It’s this way, sir,” says Nivens, in that quiet, offhand style of his.  “I’d always been in the habit of putting by most of my wages, not needing them to live on.  There’s tips, you know, sir, and quite a little one can pick up—­commissions from the stores, selling second-hand clothes and shoes, and so on.  So when Cousin Mabel had this chance to buy out the Madame Ritz Beauty Parlors, where she’d been forelady for so long, I could furnish half the capital and go in as a silent partner.”

“Wha-a-at?” says Ham, his eyes bugged.  “You own a half interest in a beauty shop—­in Madame Ritz’s?”

Nivens bows.

“That is strictly between ourselves, sir,” says he.  “I wouldn’t like it generally known.  But it’s been quite a success—­twelve attendants, sir, all busy from eleven in the morning until ten at night.  Mostly limousine trade now, for we’ve doubled our prices within the last two years.  You’ll see our ads in all the theater programs and Sunday papers.  That’s what brings in the—­”

“But see here,” breaks in Ham, “how the merry dingbats would you use me in a beauty parlor?  I’m just curious.”

Nivens pulls that flickery smile of his again.

“That wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, sir,” says he.  “In fact, I have nothing to do with the active management of Madame Ritz’s; only drop around once or twice a month to go over the books with Mabel.  It’s wonderful how profits pile up, sir.  Nearly ten thousand apiece last year.  So I’ve been thinking I ought to give up work.  It was only that I didn’t quite know what to do with myself after.  I’ve settled that now, though; at least, Mabel has.  ’You ought to take your place in society,’ she says, ‘and get married.’  The difficulty was, sir, to decide just what place I ought to take.  And then—­well, it’s an ill wind, as they say, that blows nobody luck.  Besides, if you’ll pardon me, sir, you seemed to be losing your hold on yours.”