"For him we will just now, if you please, carry what you call nought,"

answered Mr. Kleinwort quickly.

Mr. Asherill smiled again, and mentally scored another trick; but he only said aloud,

"Nevertheless, with many thanks for your offer, this is a business I would much rather decline."

"Forde wants you to undertake it as a particular favour," remarked Mr.

Werner.

"Oh! indeed."

"Yes," agreed Mr. Kleinwort; "his words were, 'Tell Asherill there can be no loss; that there must be profit, and that he will be doing me and other people, Mortomley included, a good turn besides.'"

Mr. Asherill leaned back in his arm-chair and closed his eyes; he touched the fingers of his right hand with his left, and might have looked, to those who knew no better, engaged in prayer.

Messrs. Kleinwort and Werner did know better; nevertheless, they regarded him impatiently, not knowing what turn his meditations might take, and meantime matters were pressing.

At length. Mr. Asherill unclosed his eyes and resumed an upright position.

"I cannot," he began, addressing the two men, who, for reasons best known to themselves, anxiously awaited his fiat, "do what you desire myself,--I wish I could; but there are reasons which render it impossible. Perhaps, however, my young partner, who is a perfect gentleman, may be able to help you."

He touched his bell as he spoke, and a solemn silence ensued till a clerk appeared in answer to the summons.

"Request Mr. Swanland to have the kindness to step this way," said Mr.

Asherill, and remained mute once more till his partner entered.

A man not young, certainly, though in comparison to Mr. Asherill, relatively;--a man, not a gentleman, though cast in a different and more modern mould from that which had turned out his senior; a man who had taken much pains with his manners, his speech, and his deportment; and who, though he had striven to graduate for a high place in the world's university, and failed, would never cease to give himself the airs of one who had, or ought to have, won distinguished honours.

Mr. Swanland entered. He came into the room with a quiet, almost stealthy step, and, seeing strangers with his partner, bowed to them stiffly and ceremoniously.

Bertrand Kleinwort looked him over. "No liver, no digestion, no brains, no heart--he will do," was the German's mental comment, showing that, although right in his premises, even a German may sometimes be wrong in his inferences.

With eyes not unlike those of an Albino, the object of this flattering private criticism surveyed Mr. Kleinwort and Werner for a moment; then his gaze sought the carpet whilst Mr. Asherill spoke.

"These gentlemen, Mr. Swanland," he began, "Mr. Kleinwort, Mr. Werner,"

indicating each with a wave of his hand, "have come here about a matter in which Forde is interested."

"Indeed," said Mr. Swanland, in a tone which implied Mr. Forde was no more to him than any other inhabitant of London.

"I have told them," went on Mr. Asherill, "it is not a matter with which I should personally care to be connected, but that, perhaps, you may feel yourself able to oblige them; my opinion is that the affair ought to be, and could be arranged differently. Pray remember, Mr. Werner, I advised a private settlement--the introduction of fresh blood--a friendly meeting of the principal creditors, if necessary--but nothing of a public nature. No--no--no. Tell Forde this. Tell him I refused to be mixed up with it. Tell him that whilst I do not presume to dictate to Mr. Swanland, I should prefer his refusing to be mixed up with the liquidation of Mortomley's estate, profitable though it may prove."

Having with great gravity delivered himself of which sentence, Mr.

Asherill rose and, saying he would leave his visitors to discuss affairs with his young partner, bade them good morning, took his hat, and departed.

Not merely out of the office, but out of the building. As has already been said, it was Saturday; business in the City was over for the day, and if it had not been, Mr. Asherill had no especial business to attend to. He wanted, moreover, to place himself beyond the possibility of being asked for any further opinion on the, to him, odious subject of Mortomley's downfall, and he therefore went through the sopping streets in quest of quietness, and what he called a "mouthful of lunch."

Not to any new-fangled restaurant, or bar, or dining-room, was he in the habit of repairing to recruit exhausted nature, but to an old-fashioned City tavern, where the head waiter was gracious and familiar, and the landlord obsequious to him; where the steaks were tender and juicy, the chops done to a turn, the potatoes piping hot and dry and mealy, perfect balls of flour, the ale old and mellow, and the wine, when circumstances required his indulgence in that luxury, of a vintage which Mr. Asherill, who was no mean judge of such matters, approved.

As he retraced his steps towards Salisbury Buildings, he met rushing across the road two of his own clerks.

"Going home, Bailey?" he said to the taller and older of the pair, in a tone which seemed at once to hold a benediction in it, and a recommendation to turn the morrow to profitable account.

"No, sir; we want to catch the 2.43 train to Leytonstone. Mr. Swanland wishes us to get to this place early, as the work must be finished to-day very particularly."

Thus Mr. Bailey, while he held a piece of paper to his employer, who, after putting on his gold eye-glasses, took it, and, umbrella in one hand and paper in the other, stood on the crowded side-path in the pelting rain whilst he read twice over the address presented to him:--

"_A. Mortomley, Esqre._, "_Homewood_, "_Whip's Cross_."

"Homewood," said Mr. Asherill, as if he were reciting one of the Penitential Psalms.

"Homewood--poor Mortomley! These things are really very sad."

And with a shake of his head, he handed the paper back to his clerk; and, after bidding him not lose the 2.43 train, proceeded on his way.

Mr. Asherill's knowledge of the depravity of human nature was unfortunately so great that it certainly could not have surprised him to see Bailey wink at his younger companion as they parted company with their principal. In reply to which, the junior, with the irrepressible frivolity of boyhood, thrust his tongue in his cheek.

All immensely vulgar, no doubt; yet, to a disinterested observer, immensely suggestive.

CHAPTER III.

FOR MERCIES VOUCHSAFED.

For once, however, Mr. Asherill was in earnest. Knowing what liquidation meant to the debtor and the creditors (he had grasped its meaning thoroughly before deciding to make his living out of it) he did think it a sad thing Mortomley should liquidate. He did not wish to disoblige Mr.

Forde; and yet having gauged that gentleman and the people with whom he was most intimately connected, he felt no wild desire to mell or meddle in any affair of theirs.

For no bait Mr. Kleinwort could hold out would this man have mixed himself up with an affair he, for some reason, considered so doubtful as Mortomley's,--with a business in which he saw there lay, to quote his own mental phrase, something so "fishy" as the conjunction of Kleinwort, Werner, and Forde.

Mr. Asherill did not believe in the stars; but he was sufficiently superstitious to feel satisfied so astounding a terrestrial phenomenon as that mentioned must portend approaching calamity to more than one person.

"It will end badly, I fear," he said mentally. "I hope, I do hope, Swanland will be careful. After all, the estate can prove only a poor thing, not worth the risk."

Perhaps the weather had some share in producing these misgivings,--a steady downfall of rain, a dull yellow sky, the water pouring into the gutters, and the streets and side-paths thick and slippery with mud, are not stimulants to cheerful reflection; but possibly the fact that Mr.

Asherill had not grown younger with the years may be considered as having more to do with his depression than even the wet misery of that especial Saturday.

The old head we are taught to consider so desirable, Mr. Asherill possessed, but, alas! it no longer surmounted young shoulders.

Mr. Swanland was waiting the return of his partner. The clerks had all gone, the books were put away, the safes locked up, the offices throughout the whole of the building closed, save alone that in the gallery, occupied by Messrs. Asherill and Swanland, which was the private temple of the senior partner.

There Mr. Swanland stood by the window, looking over a cheerful view of wet slates and tiles and grotesque chimney-pots; but he turned his eyes away from this prospect as Mr. Asherill entered.

"I waited to tell you I have agreed to act in that matter," he said, thrusting his right hand far down in his trousers' pocket, as was his habit when not quite at ease.

"So Bailey informed me. I met him," was the reply.