inued; "he was never, according to what I hear, a
man of any extraordinary capacity, but he was always spoken of as a man
of standing in the City, doing a safe business, not a risky one, and so
on, you know. So, of course, his manner, when I called, shocked me all
the more."

"Ah!" said the other. "Was he violent or insulting, then?"

"No, no! I can only describe his conduct as eccentric--what one might
call reprehensibly eccentric and extravagant. I didn't call exactly in
the way of business, but about a poor young fellow in my house, who is,
I fear, rather far gone in consumption, and, knowing he was a Life
Governor, y'know, I thought he might give me a letter for the hospital.
Well, when I got up to Mincing Lane----"

Paul started. It was as he had feared, then; they _were_ speaking of
him!

"When I got there, I sent in my card with a message that, if he was
engaged or anything, I would take the liberty of calling at his private
house, and so on. But they said he would see me. The clerk who showed me
in said: 'You'll find him a good deal changed, if you knew him, sir.
We're very uneasy about him here,' which prepared me for something out
of the common. Well, I went into a sort of inner room, and there he was,
in his shirt-sleeves, busy over some abomination he was cooking at the
stove, with the office-boy helping him! I never was so taken aback in my
life. I said something about calling another time, but Bultitude----"

Paul groaned. The blow had fallen. Well, it was better to be prepared
and know the worst.

"Bultitude says, just like a great awkward schoolboy, y'know, 'What's
your name? How d'ye do? Have some hardbake, it's just done?' Fancy
finding a man in his position cooking toffee in the middle of the day,
and offering it to a perfect stranger!"

"Softening of the brain--must be," said the other.

"I fear so. Well, he asked what I wanted, and I told him, and he
actually said he never did any business now, except sign his name where
his clerks told him. He'd worked hard all his life, he said, and he was
tired of it. Business was, I understood him to say, 'all rot!'"

"Then he wouldn't promise me votes or give me a letter or anything,
without consulting his head clerk; he seemed to know nothing whatever
about it himself, and when that was over, he asked me a quantity of
frivolous questions which appeared to have a sort of catch in them, as
far as I could gather, and he was exceedingly angry when I woul