"Luckily, it's not beside them," retorted Richard, maintaining his good humour. "Will you come in?" "Thanks, I will. That's what I came for. Curiosity leads me to want to view you behind the--No, no, of course it's behind the office glass partition that I'll view you, my boy. I want to hear Rich Kendrick talking business--with a big B." "I'll talk business to you, if you don't let up," declared his friend. "You've got to be cured of the idea that this is some kind of a joke, Lorry. Will you be kind enough to take me seriously?" "Find--that--impossible," drawled Lorimer, under his breath, as he followed Richard into the store. But once there, of course, his manner changed to the most courteous of which he was master. He was taken to the office and there shook hands with Hugh Benson with cordiality, having known him at college as a man who commanded respect for high scholarship and modest but assured manners, though of a quite different class of comradeship from his own. He talked pleasantly with Alfred Carson, and listened with evident interest to a business discussion between Richard and his associates, in the course of which he discovered that however much or little Richard had learned, he could speak intelligently concerning the matters then in hand. He went to lunch with Richard and Hugh Benson at a hotel, and listened again, for a decision was to be made which called for haste, and no time could be lost in the consideration of it. He spent the afternoon driving Richard's car on up the state, returning in time to pick up his friend at the appointed hour, late in the afternoon, at which they were to start back to the city. Up to the last moment of their departure business still had the upper hand, and it was not until Benson and Kendrick parted at the curb that it ended for the day, as far as Richard's part in it was concerned. "Six hours you've been at it," remarked Lorimer, as the car swung away under Richard's hand. "It makes me fatigued all over to contemplate such zeal." "Tell that to the men who really work. I'm getting off easy, to cut and run at the end of six hours." "Rich--" began his friend, then he paused. "By the Lord Harry, I'd like to know what's got you. I can't make you and the old Rich fit together at all. You and your books--you and your music--and your pictures--your polo--your 'wine, women, and song'--" "Take that last back," commanded Richard Kendrick, with sudden heat. "You know I've never gone in for that sort of thing, except as all our old crowd went in together. Personally, I haven't cared for it, and you know it. It's travel and adventure I've cared for--" "And that you're throwing over now for a country shop." "That I'm throwing over now to learn the ABC in the training school of responsibility for the big load that's to come on my shoulders. I've been asleep all these years. Thank Heaven I've waked up in time. It's no merit of mine--" "Mind telling me whose it is, then?"