"It would be only fair," Burton declared warmly, "to divide them." Mr. Waddington frowned. "I see no reason for that at all," he objected, feeling his waistcoat pocket. "The beans are in my possession." "But if we are to revert to our former state of barbarism," Burton urged, "let us at least do so together." "You are some time ahead of me," Mr. Waddington pointed out. "None of these warnings have come to you yet. It may be something wrong with my disposition, or the way I have swallowed my bean. Yours may be a permanent affair." Burton hesitated. Then he threw himself into a chair and buried his face in his hands. "My time is coming, too!" he confessed mournfully. "I am in the same position. Even while you were speaking just now, I felt a strong desire to deceive you, to invent some experience similar to your own." "Are you sure of that?" Mr. Waddington asked anxiously. "Quite sure!" Burton groaned. "Then we are both of us in it, and that's a fact," Mr. Waddington affirmed. Burton looked up. "About those beans?" Mr. Waddington thought for some few moments. "I shall keep five and give you four," he decided. "It is treating you very generously. I am not obliged to give you any at all, you know. I am doing it because I am good-natured and because we are in this thing together. If the worst happens, you can come back to your old place in the firm. I dare say we shall pull along somehow." Burton shuddered from head to foot. He saw it all mapped out before him--the miserable routine of dull, undignified work, the whole intolerable outlook of that daily life. He covered his face with his hands to shut out the prospect. "I couldn't come back!" he muttered "I couldn't!" "That's all very well," Mr. Waddington objected, "but if this thing really passes off, you'll be only too glad to. I suppose I shall flirt with Milly again, and drink beer, give up Ruskin for the Sporting Times, wear loud clothes, tell most frightful falsehoods when I sell that terrible furniture and buy another trotting horse to drive out on Sundays. Oh, Lord!" Mr. Waddington rose slowly to his feet. He lit a cigarette, sniffed it, and looked at it disparagingly. It was very fine Turkish tobacco and one of Burton's extravagances. "I am not sure, after all," he declared, "that there isn't more flavor in a British cigar." Burton shuddered "You had better take a bean at once," he groaned. "Those cigarettes are made from the finest tobacco imported." Mr. Waddington felt in his waistcoat pocket with trembling fingers, slowly produced a little silver box, took out a bean and crunched it between his teeth. An expression of immense relief at once spread over his features. He sniffed at his cigarette with an air of keen appreciation, and deliberately handed over to Burton his share of the remaining beans. "I am myself again," he declared firmly. "I can feel the change already." Burton eyed him anxiously. "Cigarette taste all right now?"