Blunt violated every tradition in the most ruthless fashion, was unimpressed by all the solemnities which awed conventional beholders, and had the most inconvenient way of asking what things meant, and (as he used to say with a sort of horrid glee) 'of picking out the heart of a thing.' Now, the Board did not at all relish having its heart picked out in this unceremonious fashion, and resented it with a sort of passionate dislike. Fotheringham felt that he had indeed fallen on very evil times, and that the pleasant days of peace were numbered. Cockshaw, when he found that Blunt would neither smoke nor play whist, gave him up as a bore. The very clerks in the office became agitated and depressed. When Blunt pulled out his spectacles and produced his papers, and went ruthlessly into figures, looking rigid and tough, and implacable and indefatigable, both Fotheringham and Cockshaw knew that their places were not worth having and that they must look for comfortable quarters elsewhere. Fotheringham counted the months to the time when his pension would be due. Cockshaw, who was a man of action, applied forthwith for the Chief Commissionership of the Carraway Islands, which was just then in the market. Blunt had not been many weeks at Dustypore before he showed to demonstration at the Board that the accounts were kept on an entirely wrong footing, and that a vast sum of money, five or six lakhs, was not traceable. 'It is the floating balance,' said Fotheringham, with an air of quiet assurance, arising from his having given the same reply frequently before, and always found it answer. 'Perhaps you will trace it, then,' said Blunt, pushing the papers across to Fotheringham in the most unfeeling way. '_I_ cannot.' 'We had better send for Strutt,' said Cockshaw, who knew nothing about the accounts himself, and had a nervous distrust of Fotheringham's explanations. Thereupon Strutt appeared, radiant and self-satisfied, and cleared up everything with the easy air of a man who is and who feels himself thoroughly master of the situation. 'No,' he said, in reply to Fotheringham's inquiry, 'not in the floating balance, but in Suspense Account A: here it is, you see: one item, 2 lakhs--85,000 rs. 15 annas 3 pie.' 'Of course,' said Fotheringham, ignoring his blunder with an air of placid dignity, 'there, you see, it is!' 'Well,' said Blunt, insatiable of explanation, 'but you said it was in the floating balance; and pray where are the other items, and what is Suspense Account A, and how many other Suspense Accounts have you? Pray go on, Mr. Strutt.' So Mr. Strutt had to go on, and then it was sad to see the brightness fade out of his face, and his pleasant swagger disappear, and his answers get wilder and wilder as Blunt led him from figure to figure, puzzled him by putting things in all sorts of new lights, and finally took him completely out of his depth.