II

In the inner office, among art-lustre ware, ink-stained wood, dusty
papers, and dirt, Jim Horrocleave banged down a petty-cash book on to
Louis' desk. His hat was at the back of his head, and his eyes blazed
at Louis, who stood somewhat limply, with a hesitant, foolish, faint
smile on his face.

"That's enough!" said Horrocleave fiercely. "I haven't had patience to
go all through it. But that's enough. I needn't tell ye I suspected ye
last year, but ye put me off. And I was too busy to take the trouble
to go into it. However, I've had a fair chance while you've been
away." He gave a sneering laugh. "I'll tell ye what put me on to ye
again, if you've a mind to know. The weekly expenses went down as soon
as ye thought I had suspicions. Ye weren't clever enough to keep 'em
up. Well, what have ye got to say for yeself, seeing ye are on yer way
to America?"

"I never meant to go to America," said Louis. "Why should I go to
America?"

"Ask me another. Then ye confess?"

"I don't," said Louis.

"Oh! Ye don't!" Horrocleave sat down and put his hands on his
outstretched knees.

"There may be mistakes in the petty-cash book. I don't say there
aren't. Any one who keeps a petty-cash book stands to lose. If he's
too busy at the moment to enter up a payment, he may forget it--and
there you are! He's out of pocket. Of course," Louis added, with a
certain loftiness, "as you're making a fuss about it I'll pay up for
anything that's wrong ... whatever the sum is. If you make it out to
be a hundred pounds I'll pay up."

Horrocleave growled: "Oh, so ye'll pay up, will ye? And suppose I
won't let ye pay up? What shall ye do then?"

Louis, now quite convinced that Horrocleave was only bullying
retorted, calmly:

"It's I that ought to ask you that question."

The accuser was exasperated.

"A couple o' years in quod will be about your mark, I'm thinking," he
said.

Whereupon Louis was suddenly inspired to answer:

"Yes. And supposing I was to begin to talk about illicit commissions?"

Horrocleave jumped up with such ferocious violence that Louis drew
back, startled. The recent Act of Parliament, making a crime of secret
commissions to customers' employees, had been a blow to the trade
in art-lustre ware, and it was no secret in the inner office that
Horrocleave, resenting its interference with the natural course
of business, had more than once discreetly flouted it, and thus
technically transgressed the criminal law