"It's amazing--positively amazing!" they murmured together as they watched their elderly friend not only replace his trophy on his head, but cock it at an angle that breathed reckless defiance to the March winds. "Did you ever see Heriot Walkingshaw with his hat at that angle before?" "As often as I've seen him do even time chasing it!" Off he strode, breathing faster than usual, and his hat still a little ruffled, but otherwise as jaunty a figure as ever left an office; while his two acquaintances went away to narrate to the wondering city what their astonished eyes had seen. * * * * * Meanwhile the junior partner was unburdening his soul to the confidential clerk. "That's the end of Guthrie and Co.!" he exclaimed wrathfully. "The whole thing settled in a fortnight--we might be a marriage registry! It's just been 'we agree to this,' 'we agree to that,' 'we agree to anything you suggest.' We haven't fought a single point. I'd have made those creditors whistle a bit before they saw yon five thousand pounds! But what's my father say? You heard him yourself--'moral obligation'--'might be fought!'--'get it settled.' He's botched the whole business." Mr. Thomieson shook his grizzled head. "It's certainly not been our usual way of doing business." Andrew glowered at his desk. "He said he was going to leave the business to me, and in forty-eight hours he was taking more responsibilities on his shoulders than he had for years! He barely has the decency to ask me for my opinion now; and when I give it, he tells me it's timid. Timid!" The junior partner's voice rose to a shout. "He just goes at things like a bull, and before I've time to get in two words edgeways, the thing is settled and he's out of the office whistling!" "That whistling's a queer thing he's taken to," observed the clerk. "He was doing it coming home from church last Sunday." "Verra strange, verra strange," commented Mr. Thomieson. He seemed more struck with the peculiarity of the senior partner's conduct; Andrew with its offensiveness. "He shows a fine grasp of things all the same," added the clerk. "In that way it fairly does me good sir, to see him so speerited. It minds me of old times." "A proper like business we'd have had to-day if he'd gone on like this in old times!" grumbled Andrew. "He gets through things quick enough, I admit; but I tell you he does not take the same interest in them. He talks of 'dry details'!" "Is that so?" said Mr. Thomieson, his eyes opening. "It's a fact. And he's started cracking jokes with the clerks." "Aye, I heard him yesterday myself. It sounded awful bad in this office." "I tell you what it'll end in," said Andrew. "It'll end in our losing our business--that'll be the end of it. And this is what he calls 'a few years of quiet usefulness'!"