As he went through the cold and clear morning with the activity and hurry of the City about him, he could review the short episode of the night before in a clearer light and with more justice. His irritation at his wife's remarks had largely disappeared; he had recognised that such irritation is always the worst of counsellors in a business matter; he remembered Mr. Boyle's long career, and though that career had been checkered, and though of late they had seen less of each other, he could not but contrast the smallness of the favour demanded with the still substantial household and the public name of his friend. He further recollected, as he went rapidly eastward, more than one such little transaction which had proved profitable to him in the past, not only in cash, but, what was more important to him, in business relations. It was in such a mood that he reached Mr. Boyle's office: his first emotion was one of surprise at the fineness of the place. He had not entered it for many years, but during those years he had hardly represented Mr. Boyle to himself as a man rising in the world. He was surprised, and agreeably surprised; and when one of the many clerks informed him that Mr. Boyle was down at the docks seeing to the warehouse, he took accurate directions of the place where he might find him, and went off in a better frame of mind; nay, in some readiness to make an advance upon that original quotation of five hundred which, he was now free to admit, had been accepted by Mr. Boyle with more composure than he had expected. He was further impressed as he left the office to see upon a brass plate the new name of Czernwitz added to Mr. Boyle's and to note the several lines of telephone which radiated from the central cabin that served the whole premises. Commercial requirements are many, complicated, delicate and often secret; nor was Mr. Clutterbuck so simple as to contrast the excellent appointments of the office and the air of prosperity which permeated it, with the personal and private offer for an advance which Mr. Boyle had been good enough to make.