Litton paused for a few moments, tapping his teeth as if undecided, till his chief paused and looked at him curiously. "Well, what is it?" he said. "Look here, Mr Elbraham," said Litton, "I suppose we are not very good friends?" "H'm, I don't know. You are in my pay," said the financier coarsely, "so you ought to be one of my best friends." "You've said too many sharp things to me, Mr Elbraham, to make me feel warmly towards you; but, all the same, I confess that you have done me some very good turns in money matters; and I hope, though I take your pay, that I am too much of a gentleman to stand by and see anyone take a mean advantage of a weakness on your part." "Weakness? My part!" said the financier fiercely, as if the very idea of his being weak was absurd. "Yes, sir, weakness. Look here, Mr Elbraham, I should not like to see you taken in." "What do you mean, sir?" "Mean?" said Litton. "Well, Mr Elbraham, I'm not afraid of you; so whether you are offended or not, I shall speak out." "Then speak out, sir, and don't shilly-shally." "Well, sir, it seems to me that there's a good deal of fortune-hunting about. Those Dymcox people have good blood, certainly; but they're as poor as rats, and I'll be bound to say nothing would please the old aunts better than hooking you, with one of those girls for a bait." "Will you have the goodness to reply to that batch of letters, Mr Litton?" said Elbraham haughtily. "I asked your opinion--or, rather, gave you my opinion--of Miss Clotilde Dymcox, and you favour me with a pack of impertinent insinuations regarding the family at Hampton Court." Mr Elbraham went angrily out into the hall to don his light and tight overcoat and grey hat, and walk down to the station. As Litton heard the door close he sank back in his chair at the writing-table, and laughed silently and heartily. "Ha, ha, ha!" he ejaculated; "and this is your clever financier--this is your man far above the ordinary race in shrewdness! Why am I not wealthy, too, when I can turn the scoundrel round my finger, clever as he believes he is? Clever, talented, great! Why, if I metaphorically pull his tail like one would that of a pig, saying, `You shan't go that way!' he grunts savagely, and makes straight for the hole." Arthur Litton took one of Mr Elbraham's choice cigars from his case, deliberately pitched aside the letters he had to answer, struck a light, placed his heels upon the table, and, balancing his chair upon two legs, began to smoke. "Well, so far so good," he said at last, as he watched the aromatic rings of smoke ascend towards the ceiling. "I suppose it is so. Mr Elbraham is one of the cleverest men on 'Change, and he manages the money-making world. I can manage Mr Elbraham. _Ergo_, I am a cleverer man than the great financier; but he makes his thousands where I make shillings and pence. Why is this?"