See what happened, the very next day, at the office in New Square. When George arrived in the morning he found that the senior Partner had not yet appeared. He was late. For the first time for fifty years and more, he was late. He went to his place, and the empty chair gave an air of bereavement to the room. Checkley was laying out the table; that is, he had done so a quarter of an hour before, but he could not leave off doing it: he was loth to leave the table before the master came: he took up the blotting pad and laid it down again: he arranged the pens: he lingered over the job. 'Not come yet?' George cried, astonished. 'Do you think that yesterday's shock has been too much for him?' 'I believe it's killed him,' said the old clerk--'killed him. That's what it has done;' and he went on muttering and mumbling. 'Don't,'he cried, when George took up the letters. 'P'r'aps he isn't dead yet--you haven't stepped into his shoes just yet. Let them letters alone.' 'Not dead yet. I hope not.' George began to open the letters, regardless of the surly and disrespectful words. One may forgive a good deal to fidelity. 'He will go on for a good many years after we have got the money back for him.' 'After some of us'--Checkley corrected him--'have got his money back for him.' He turned to go back to his own office, then turned again and came back to the table. He laid both hands upon it, leaned forward, shaking his head, and said with trembling voice: 'Did you never think, Mr. Austin, of the black ingratitood of the thing? Him that done it you know--him that eat his bread and took his money.' When Checkley was greatly moved, his grammar went back to the early days before he was confidential clerk. 'I daresay it was ungrateful. I have been thinking, hitherto, of stronger adjectives.' 'Well--we've agreed--all of us--haven't we?--that it was done in this office--some one in the office done it with the help of some one out: some one who knows his ways'--he pointed to the empty chair--'some one who'd known all his ways for a long time, ten years at least.' 'Things certainly seem to point that way'--'and they point to you,' he would have added, but refrained. The old man shook his head again and went on. 'They've eaten his bread and done his work; and--and--don't you call it, Mr. Austin--I ask you plain--don't you call it black ingratitood?'