"Your uncle ...?" she questioned vaguely.
"Yes, Mr. Boldero. He's a partner in Birkinshaws."
"Oh!"
"You've heard of him? He's a great Wesleyan."
"Oh yes," she said. "When we had the Wesleyan Conference here, he--"
"He's always very great at Conferences," said Gerald Scales.
"I didn't know he had anything to do with Birkinshaws."
"He isn't a working partner of course," Mr. Scales explained. "But
he means me to be one. I have to learn the business from the
bottom. So now you understand why I'm a traveller."
"I see," she said, still more deeply impressed.
"I'm an orphan," said Gerald. "And Uncle Boldero took me in hand
when I was three."
"I SEE!" she repeated.
It seemed strange to her that Mr. Scales should be a Wesleyan--
just like herself. She would have been sure that he was 'Church.'
Her notions of Wesleyanism, with her notions of various other
things, were sharply modified.
"Now tell me about you," Mr. Scales suggested.
"Oh! I'm nothing!" she burst out.
The exclamation was perfectly sincere. Mr. Scales's disclosures
concerning himself, while they excited her, discouraged her.
"You're the finest girl I've ever met, anyhow," said Mr.
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