as was his habit when not quite at ease.

"So Bailey informed me. I met him," was the reply.

"There will be something to the good I fancy," remarked Mr. Swanland, feeling his way with his accustomed caution. Although he meant, at some not remote period, to be sole master in the firm, still as yet he was only a junior, and unlike some juniors, who ruin their prospects for want of thought, Mr. Swanland remembered this fact.

"To the good for whom?" inquired Mr. Asherill sharply; "for us, for the creditors, or for Mortomley?"

"I have been accustomed to regard the good of one as the good of all," said Mr. Swanland, with a touching appearance of sincerity Mr. Asherill himself might have envied.

"I am sorry you undertook the business," observed the senior, shifting his ground from theory to fact.

"Why, you left me to undertake it," expostulated Mr. Swanland.

"I left you to refuse it," said Mr. Asherill emphatically. "I did not, for I could not, send back a message to Forde telling him to do his dirty work for himself, or get some one else to do it. I wanted to be rid, civilly, of the business, and I thought you would understand that."

"I certainly did not understand it," Mr. Swanland replied. "I thought you wished that estate to be wound up in our office, though you did not care, for some reason or other, to be brought forward prominently in it yourself. If I have done wrong, I am sorry for it. All I can say is, I did wrong with the best intentions."

And after this ample apology and vindication, Mr. Swanland thrust both hands deep in his pockets, and turned once more to the dripping roofs and twisted chimneys.

"Well, well, it cannot be helped now," said Mr. Asherill, in a conciliatory tone; "another time I will be more explicit; only you know, you must know, how resolutely I have always refused to have anything to do with a transaction upon which it seems a blessing cannot rest."

"Why cannot a blessing rest on this affair," interrupted Mr. Swanland impatiently.

"Because it is not straightforward. What have these men to do with the matter. They are not petitioning creditors; they are not, according to their own showing, pressing creditors. They want the man to go on, and he or his family want to stop. What is the English of it all? Why does not his solicitor appear?"

"I have a letter from him," said Mr. Swanland, lifting a sheet of note paper off the table and handing it to his partner.

Mr. Asherill looked first at the signature. "Michael Benning," he read, and looked at Mr. Swanland in blank consternation.

"Why, he is solicitor to the General Chemical Company."

"No; surely not?"

"Surely yes. I told you there was something underneath all this."

"I do not see that exactly. Why should he not be Mr. Mortomley's solicitor too?"

"Because I happen to know his solicitor. As honest a man as ever breathed; and that is more than Michael Benning could be accused of."

"Perhaps Mr. Mortomley has quarrelled with his honest solicitor," suggested Mr. Swanland; a sneer lurking in his tone. "Travellers on the road to ruin are very apt to quarrel with their best friends. However, let that be as it may, I have nothing to do with creditor or debtor, save to hold the scales even between them. If we do our work conscientiously and impartially, I cannot see what it matters to us how much finessing there may be on the part of others."

"Unless we are placed in a false position in consequence," observed Mr. Asherill.

"I will take care of that," said the junior, rash and over-confident as even middle-aged youth is sometimes prone to be.

"Another thing," commenced Mr. Asherill. "You know how resolutely I always set my face against having to do anything with the affairs of gentlemen."

"I am aware of your prejudices," was the reply; "we have lost a considerable amount of valuable business in consequence."

"We need not argue that point now," said Mr. Asherill.

"Certainly not, seeing this Mr. Mortomley is a colour maker."

"And what else?" asked Mr. Asherill.

"I have not an idea," replied Mr. Swanland, looking at his partner with some curiosity.

"The son of a gentleman—of as true a gentleman as ever made trade an honourable calling, when trade was a very different thing to what it is now. Many and many a poor wretch he saved from ruin. Many and many a man owes all he has, all he is, to the princely munificence, to the wide, silent charity of Mortomley's father."

"Well, perhaps some of the number will come forward to help the son," suggested Mr. Swanland.

"No," said Mr. Asherill, "it is not in our rank any one who knows the world looks for gratitude or friendship. Mortomley's help will not come from those his father assisted; it will come from the only men who ever really stick to each other—the gentry. His business is gone I see plainly, but he will not go; and there will come a day of reckoning and explanation yet, which may prove unpleasant for some people if they live to see it."

Mr. Swanland shrugged his shoulders. His knowledge of the world was confined to a very small section of the world; and though it would have very much astonished him to hear any one thought so, he really had still much to learn.

"Meanwhile," he remarked, "I fear we must liquidate Mortomley. There seems, indeed, no help for it, with half-a-dozen executions in or about to go in."

"You are not serious?"

"Never was more serious in my life. Here is a list of them,—two at Whip's Cross, one in Thames Street, judgment summons returnable to-day, two executions in the hands of the sheriff, one in the district county court expected to seize daily."

Mr. Asherill lifted his hands.

"Why did he ever let it come to this?"

"Forde would not allow him to stop."

"How could he prevent him?"

"I do not know. He would prevent it now if he could only see the man. Forde, so far as I can understand, is a person who, being mentally short-sighted, can only see to twelve o'clock the next day. If twelve o'clock can by hook or crook be reached, he thinks twelve o'clock the following day is possible likewise. This is the sort of life he seems to have been forcing on Mortomley—helping him at the last gasp to pay out the sheriff, and suggesting all sorts of ridiculous plans to enable him to float a little longer. Even according to the showing of his friend Kleinwort Forde must be a perfect fool."

"His friend Kleinwort did not happen to show you anything else he was?" asked Mr. Asherill. "No. Well, you will find out for yourself in time. Meanwhile I should advise you to order your steps discreetly in this matter, or you may repent it to the last day of your life. I will not detain you any longer. I have said my final word about Mortomley and his affairs. Good afternoon, God bless you," and the senior wrung his young partner's hand and once again descended the staircase; while Mr. Swanland, putting on his top-coat and taking his hat and umbrella, remarked half audibly,

"The old hypocrite grows childish, but there is always a grain of truth amongst his maunderings. Yes, Mr. Forde, you think to use me for a tool, but I will not cut an inch unless I find it to my own advantage to do so."

Not for many a day had Mr. Asherill carried so—what he would have called—dubious a heart home with him as he did on that especial Saturday afternoon while he travelled from Broad Street to Kew.

There were people in the same compartment with him whom