Scotch whisky, and a siphon of aerated water. On the table beside him
there was also an empty glass that had contained a cocktail.

It was the consoling moment of the day. After the strain of a
nine-o'clock breakfast and the rush to the city before eleven, after the
hours of purposeless hanging about the office of Toogood & Masterman,
where he could see he wasn't wanted, he found it restful to retire into
his own corner and sink drowsily into his cups. He did sink into them
drowsily, and yet through well-marked phases of excitement. He knew
those phases now; he could tell in advance how each stage would pass
into another.

There was first the comfort of the big chair and the friendly covers of
_L'Illustration_ and the _Graphic_. He didn't care to talk. He liked to
be let alone. When he came from the office he was generally dispirited.
Masterman's queer, contemptuous manner was enough to discourage any one.
He was sure, too, that Claude and Billy Cheever ridiculed his big, fat
figure behind his back. But once he sank into the deep, red-leather
arm-chair he was safe. It was ridiculous that a man of his age should
come to recognize the advantages of such a refuge, but he laid it to the
charge of a mean and spiteful world.

The world did not cease to be mean and spiteful till after he had had
his cocktail. It was wonderful the change that took place then--not
suddenly, but with a sweet, slow, cheering inner transformation. It was
a surging, a glowing, a mellowing. It was like the readjustment of the
eyes of the soul. It was seeing the world as generous, kindly. It was
growing generous and kindly himself, with the happy conviction that more
remained to be got out of life than he had ever wrung from it.

Still, it was something to be a rich banker. Every one couldn't be that.
Archie Masterman had certainly possessed a quick eye when he singled out
Len Willoughby as the man who could put the firm of Toogood & Masterman
on its feet. Three hundred thousand dollars of Bessie's money had gone
into that business in 1892, just in time to profit by the panic of 1893.
Lord, how they had bought!--gilt-edged stocks for next to nothing!--and
how they had sold, a few years later! Len never knew how much money they
made. He supposed Archie didn't, either. There were years when the Stock
Exchange had been like a wheat-field, yielding thirtyfold and sixtyfold
and a hundredfold for every seed they had sown. He had never attempted
to keep a