e.

"Phew!" said Beevor; "that's sharp work, isn't it?"

"I don't know. I've been sticking hard at it for over a fortnight."

"Well, you might have given me a chance of seeing what you've made of
it. I let you see all _my_ work!"

"To tell you the honest truth, old fellow, I wasn't at all sure you'd
like it, and I was afraid you'd put me out of conceit with what I'd
done, and Wackerbath was in a frantic hurry to have the plans--so there
it was."

"And do you think he'll be satisfied with them?"

"He ought to be. I don't like to be cock-sure, but I believe--I really
do believe--that I've given him rather more than he expected. It's going
to be a devilish good house, though I say it myself."

"Something new-fangled and fantastic, eh? Well, he mayn't care about it,
you know. When you've had my experience, you'll realise that a client is
a rum bird to satisfy."

"I shall satisfy _my_ old bird," said Horace, gaily. "He'll have a cage
he can hop about in to his heart's content."

"You're a clever chap enough," said Beevor; "but to carry a big job like
this through you want one thing--and that's ballast."

"Not while you heave yours at my head! Come, old fellow, you aren't
really riled because I sent off those plans without showing them to you?
I shall soon have them back, and then you can pitch into 'em as much as
you please. Seriously, though, I shall want all the help you can spare
when I come to the completed designs."

"'Um," said Beevor, "you've got along very well alone so far--at least,
by your own account; so I dare say you'll be able to manage without me
to the end. Only, you know," he added, as he left the room, "you haven't
won your spurs yet. A fellow isn't necessarily a Gilbert Scott, or a
Norman Shaw, or a Waterhouse just because he happens to get a
sixty-thousand pound job the first go off!"

"Poor old Beevor!" thought Horace, repentantly, "I've put his back up.
I might just as well have shown him the plans, after all; it wouldn't
have hurt me and it would have pleased _him_. Never mind, I'll make my
peace with him after lunch. I'll ask him to give me his idea for a--no,
hang it all, even friendship has its limits!"

He returned from lunch to hear what sounded like an altercation of some
sort in his office, in which, as he neared his door, Beevor's voice was
distinctly audible.

"My dear sir," he was saying, "I have already told you that it is no
affair of mine."

"But I ask you, sir, as a br