EDWARD. [_he is very near crying._] Oh, father. MR. VOYSEY. Now look here, Edward, I'm going to ring and dispose of these letters. Please pull yourself together. [_He pushes the little button on his table._] EDWARD. I didn't leave my rooms all day yesterday. MR. VOYSEY. A pleasant Sunday! You must learn whatever the business may be to leave it behind you at the Office. Why, life's not worth living else. PEACEY _comes in to find_ MR. VOYSEY _before the fire ostentatiously warming and rubbing his hands_. Oh, there isn't much else, Peacey. Tell Simmons that if he satisfies you about the details of this lease it'll be all right. Make a note for me of Mr. Grainger's address at Mentone. I shall have several letters to dictate to Atkinson. I'll whistle for him. PEACEY. Mr. Burnett . . Burnett v Marks had just come in, Mr. Edward. EDWARD. [_without turning._] It's only fresh instructions. Will you take them? PEACEY. All right. PEACEY _goes, lifting his eyebrow at the queerness of_ EDWARD'S _manner. This_ MR. VOYSEY _sees, returning to his table with a little scowl_. MR. VOYSEY. Now sit down. I've given you a bad forty-eight hours, it seems. Well, I've been anxious about you. Never mind, we'll thresh the thing out now. Go through the two accounts. Mrs. Murberry's first . . how do you find it stands? EDWARD. [_his feelings choking him._] I hoped you were playing some trick on me. MR. VOYSEY. Come now. EDWARD _separates the papers precisely and starts to detail them; his voice quite toneless. Now and then his father's sharp comments ring out in contrast._ EDWARD. We've got the lease of her present house, several agreements . . and here's her will. Here's also a sometime expired power of attorney over her securities and her property generally . . it was for six months. MR. VOYSEY. She was in South Africa. EDWARD. Here's the Sheffield mortgage and the Henry Smith mortgage with Banker's receipts . . hers to us for the interest up to date . . four and a half and five per cent. Then . . Fretworthy Bonds. There's a memorandum in your writing that they are at the Bank; but you didn't say what Bank. MR. VOYSEY. My own . . Stukeley's. EDWARD. [_just dwelling on the words._] Your own. I marked that with a query. There's eight thousand five hundred in three and a half India stock. And there are her Banker's receipts for cheques on account of those dividends. I presume for those dividends. MR. VOYSEY. Why not? EDWARD. [_gravely._] Because then, Father, there are Banker's half yearly receipts for sums amounting to an average of four hundred and twenty pounds a year. But I find no record of any capital to produce this. MR. VOYSEY. Go on. What =do= you find? EDWARD. Till about three years back there seems to have been eleven thousand in Queenslands which would produce--did produce exactly the same sum. But after January of that year I find no record of this. MR. VOYSEY. In fact the Queenslands are missing?