e been looking through the figures, you know. Profits seem to have
been going down a good deal."

"Pooh! That's nothing! Hides were ridiculously high all last year, but
they're on the drop now. Besides, these accountants always have to
make out balance sheets from a pessimistic point of view."

"The present capital of the firm," Jacob commented, "seems to me
astonishingly small."

"What's it figure out at?" Mr. Bultiwell enquired, with a fine show of
carelessness. "Forty thousand pounds? Well, that is small--smaller
than it's been at any time during the last ten years. Perhaps I have
embarked in a few too many outside investments. They are all good
'uns, though. No use having money lying idle, Mr. Pratt, these days.
Now my idea was," he went on, striving to hide a slight quaver in his
voice, "that you put in, say, eighty thousand pounds, and take an
equal partnership--a partnership, Pratt, remember, in Bultiwell's....
Eh? What's that?"

Mr. Bultiwell looked up with a well-assumed frown of annoyance. A very
fashionably dressed young lady, attractive notwithstanding a certain
sullenness of expression, had entered the room carrying a great bunch
of roses.

"So sorry, dad," she said, strolling up to the table. "I understood
that you were alone. Here are the roses," she added, laying them upon
the table without enthusiasm. "Are you coming up west for luncheon
to-day?"

"My dear," Mr. Bultiwell replied, "I am engaged just now. By the bye,
you know Mr. Pratt, don't you? Pratt, you remember my daughter?"

Jacob, whose memories of that young lady, with her masses of yellow
hair and most alluring smile, had kept him in fairyland for three
months, and a little lower than hell for the last two years, took
fierce command of himself as he rose to his feet and received a very
cordial but somewhat forced greeting from this unexpected visitor.

"Of course I know Mr. Pratt," she answered, "and I hope he hasn't
altogether forgotten me. The last time I saw you, you bicycled over
one evening, didn't you, to see my father's roses, and we made you
play tennis. I remember how cross dad was because you played without
shoes."

"Mr. Pratt is doubtless better provided in these days," Bultiwell
observed with an elephantine smile. "What about running over to see us
to-night or to-morrow night in that new car of yours, Pratt, eh?"

"Do come," the young lady begged, with a very colourable imitation of
enthusiasm. "I am longing for some te