In his dealings with Mr. Dorriman there were so many things that might appear against him. He was too cautious and too clever a man to put upon paper himself a word that might at any time rise up against him. But he knew Mr. Dorriman's ways; he knew that the one business-like habit he had was the tidy and careful way he had of docketing and filing all his papers. How often had the poor man not pointed to those carefully-folded and initialed slips, as a proof of how entirely nature had intended him for a thorough man of business? Though Mr. Sandford, with a flow of language, and great powers of speech, could always confute him in an argument, how often he himself had felt uncomfortable when some paper he had entirely forgotten re-appeared in a moment, with its initial letter and note, showing to what it referred, written in a fine clear style outside. One book, and only one of any importance, had he found in the writing-table drawers. This book was a carefully drawn up list of the papers Mr. Dorriman considered valuable or of any importance. It was written in that curiously neat and precise hand to be found generally in those who have nothing to do, and do that methodically. All Mr. Dorriman's conception of business lay in this orderly manner of keeping papers; his losses and his gains were to him all vagueness. He hoped to get something by taking shares in one or another company, and he believed implicitly in whatever it was at the moment; was not only enthusiastic, but tired out his friends by the manner in which at inappropriate moments he introduced the hobby of the hour, which was to make his own fortune so completely that his good heart wanted all his friends to become rich in a like manner. The immediate cause of his failure had been a carpet manufactory. Needless to say, he did not know one carpet from another, but it was sufficient for him that other people did. Wool was all round him on the hills, and the same primitive dyes of our forefathers still existed on every muir. The Cluny Macpherson plaid is the first and most primitive of all tartans, having only the natural colours of the wool--the bloom and the root of the heather in its manufacture. Mr. Dorriman was fired with the ambition of producing carpets on the same principle, where only black and white, purple and yellow, were to be combined.