Poor George felt that he had never in his life had anything quite so distasteful to do as the task he had before him now of asking a favour of Mr. Gurton. But there was no help for it, and so he put the best face he could upon the matter, got to the bank, where his chief was, he knew, still at this hour to be found, and knocked at the door of his private room. “Come in,” called out the well-known husky voice. Mr. Gurton was reading a letter. His face was flushed and his eyes were dull, but he had as much command of himself as usual. “Oh, it’s you, is it? What do you want?” he asked with the extra shade of surliness which he used towards the people he did not like. “Yes, sir,” said George. “I am sorry to disturb you after office hours, but it is upon a matter of so much importance to me that I hope you will excuse my coming to you.” “Well, what is it? Be quick.” The words, the appeal, stuck in the young man’s throat; but out they must come. “I am in pressing difficulties, sir; I can’t explain to you how now, but it was through no fault of mine. Just now when I went home I found a couple of men seizing my wife’s things. She is in a delicate state of health, and I am afraid of the shock for her. Will you be so kind as to advance me twenty pounds of my salary? I will write to my friends in England to-night, and I shall have the money next week, and will return it to you at once, if you please. It is a very difficult thing for me to ask, but I hope you won’t refuse me.” He hurried out the words, not daring to look at Mr. Gurton, who had risen from his chair and walked over to the fireplace with a tread which in its pompous heaviness told George before he looked up that he had failed. There was a slight pause when he finished speaking, Mr. Gurton rattling his watch-chain and clearing his throat. George raised his eyes, and saw that his chief’s bloated face expressed nothing but complacent satisfaction. Then the devil woke in the lad with such a hungry fury that he turned hastily to the door, afraid of himself. Mr. Gurton, unluckily, could not resist a little play with his fish, and he called him back. George hesitated, and at last turned slowly. Mr. Gurton paused again to find some particularly offensive form of expression, for he thought he saw his opportunity, by insulting the young fellow past endurance, to force him to resign his post, and so make room for his own reputed nephew. He had been put in possession, too, of a damaging fact against George, and here was the occasion made to his hand, to use it. “I’m sorry for this little misfortune, Lauriston, deuced sorry; not only because it is quite beyond my powers to assist you, but because, you see, it’s so particularly bad for a House that’s just starting, for anything disreputable to be known about its _employés_.” “Disreputable!” echoed George in a low voice, starting erect. “You have no right to use such a word without knowing the facts, Mr. Gurton.”