King Midas's servant, when he was irresistibly impelled to whisper, dug a hole in the ground and placed his whisper at the bottom of that hole. But the grasses grew up and sighed the words to the passing breeze, so that the market women heard them on their way: 'The King's ears are the ears of an Ass--the ears of an Ass--the ears of an Ass.' The old and trusty servant of Dering and Son buried his secret in the leaves of his Copying-book. Here it was found by the boy who worked the Copying-press. As he turned over the pages, he became conscious of a sibilant, malignant, revengeful murmur: 'Who stole the bonds? The new Partner.--Who forged the letters? The new Partner.--Who robbed the safe? The new Partner.' Here was a pretty thing for a pretty innocent office boy to hear! Naturally, his very soul became aflame: when the dinner hour arrived, he told another boy as a profound secret what he had heard. That boy told an older boy, who told another still older, who told another, and so up the long official ladder, until everybody in the place knew that the new Partner--actually the new Partner--the most fortunate of all young men that ever passed his Exam.--who had stepped at a bound from two hundred to a thousand, at least--this young man, of all young men in the world, had forged his partner's name, robbed his partner's safe, made away with his partner's property. Who after this can trust anybody? But others there were who refused to believe this thing. They pointed out that the new Partner continued--apparently--on the best of terms with the old Partner: they argued that when such things are done, friendships are killed and partnerships are dissolved. They even went so far, though members of the great profession which believes in no man's goodness, as to declare their belief that the new Partner could not possibly by any temptation do such things. And there were others who pointed to the fact that the whisper came from the boy of the Copying-press: that he heard it whispered by the fluttering leaves: and that it was imparted to those leaves by Checkley--old Checkley--whose hatred towards the new Partner was notorious to all men: not on account of any personal qualities or private injuries, but out of the jealousy which made him regard the Chief as his own property: and because he had been deprived of his power in the office--the power of appointment and disappointment and the raising of screw, which he had previously possessed. Checkley was dethroned. Therefore, Checkley spread this rumour. Others, again, said that if the rumour was really started by Checkley, which could not be proved, seeing that, like all whispers or rumours, the origin was unknown, and perhaps supernatural, then Checkley must have very strong grounds for starting such a thing.