For no bait Mr. Kleinwort could hold out would this man have mixed himself up with an affair he, for some reason, considered so doubtful as Mortomley's,--with a business in which he saw there lay, to quote his own mental phrase, something so "fishy" as the conjunction of Kleinwort, Werner, and Forde. Mr. Asherill did not believe in the stars; but he was sufficiently superstitious to feel satisfied so astounding a terrestrial phenomenon as that mentioned must portend approaching calamity to more than one person. "It will end badly, I fear," he said mentally. "I hope, I do hope, Swanland will be careful. After all, the estate can prove only a poor thing, not worth the risk." Perhaps the weather had some share in producing these misgivings,--a steady downfall of rain, a dull yellow sky, the water pouring into the gutters, and the streets and side-paths thick and slippery with mud, are not stimulants to cheerful reflection; but possibly the fact that Mr. Asherill had not grown younger with the years may be considered as having more to do with his depression than even the wet misery of that especial Saturday. The old head we are taught to consider so desirable, Mr. Asherill possessed, but, alas! it no longer surmounted young shoulders. Mr. Swanland was waiting the return of his partner. The clerks had all gone, the books were put away, the safes locked up, the offices throughout the whole of the building closed, save alone that in the gallery, occupied by Messrs. Asherill and Swanland, which was the private temple of the senior partner. There Mr. Swanland stood by the window, looking over a cheerful view of wet slates and tiles and grotesque chimney-pots; but he turned his eyes away from this prospect as Mr. Asherill entered. "I waited to tell you I have agreed to act in that matter," he said, thrusting his right hand far down in his trousers' pocket, as was his habit when not quite at ease. "So Bailey informed me. I met him," was the reply. "There will be something to the good I fancy," remarked Mr. Swanland, feeling his way with his accustomed caution. Although he meant, at some not remote period, to be sole master in the firm, still as yet he was only a junior, and unlike some juniors, who ruin their prospects for want of thought, Mr. Swanland remembered this fact. "To the good for whom?" inquired Mr. Asherill sharply; "for us, for the creditors, or for Mortomley?" "I have been accustomed to regard the good of one as the good of all," said Mr. Swanland, with a touching appearance of sincerity Mr. Asherill himself might have envied. "I am sorry you undertook the business," observed the senior, shifting his ground from theory to fact. "Why, you left me to undertake it," expostulated Mr. Swanland.