The stranger went out, lifting his hat to the room generally, and Mr. Brown put the paper away in his pocket. "Who was that?" asked Mr. Bede Greatorex. "A gentleman I used to know, sir, a farmer," was the reply. "I met him outside just now, and he came in with me. We got talking of old times." "Oh, I thought it was someone on business for the office" said Mr. Bede Greatorex, half in apology for inquiring. His face looked worn as usual, his eyes bright and restless. Some of the family could remember that when the late Mrs. Greatorex had first shown symptoms of the malady that killed _her_, her eyes had been unnaturally bright. The work went on. The clocks drew near to twelve, and the sun in the heavens grew fiercer. Roland began to look white and flustered. What with the work and what with the heat, he thought he might as well be roughing it at Port Natal. He was doing pretty well on the whole--for him--and did not get lectures above four times a week. To help liking Roland was impossible; with his frank manners, his free good-nature, his unsophisticated mind, and his candid revelations in regard to himself, that would now and again plunge the office into private convulsions. It was also within the range of possibility that his good connections, and the fact of his being free of the house, running up at will to pay unexpected visits to Mrs. Greatorex, had their due weight in Mr. Brown's mind; for breaches of office etiquette were tolerated in Roland that certainly would not have been in any other clerk, whether he was a gentleman or not. Roland had chosen to constitute himself a kind of enfant de la maison; he and his brothers and sisters had been intimate with the Joliffe girls; he could remember once having nearly got up a fight with Louisa, now Mrs. Bede Greatorex; and, to make Roland understand that in running upstairs when he chose, darting in upon Mrs. Greatorex as she sat in her boudoir or drawing-room, darting in upon Miss Channing as she gave lessons to Jane Greatorex, he was intruding where he ought not, would have been a hopeless task. Once or twice Mr. Bede Greatorex had voluntarily invited him up to luncheon or dinner; and so Roland made himself free of the house, and in a degree swayed the office. They were very busy today. The work which he and Hurst and Jenner had in hand was being waited for, so that Roland had to stick to it, in spite of the relaxing heat, and fully decided he could not be worse off at Port Natal. The scratching of the pens was going on pretty equally, when Frank Greatorex came in. "I want a cheque from you, Bede." "Where's Mr. Greatorex?" returned Bede in answer; for it was to him such applications were made in general. "Gone out." Bede put aside the deed he had been sedulously examining, went into his private room, and came back with his chequebook. "How much?" he asked of his brother, as he sat down. "Forty-four pounds. Make it out to Sir Richard Yorke."