Norman pushed a sheet of letter paper across the desk toward his partner. "Perhaps that will help you," observed he carelessly.
Lockyer put on his nose glasses with the gesture of grace and intellect that was famous. He read—a brief demand for a release from the partnership and a request for an immediate settlement. Lockyer blinked off his glasses with the gesture that was as famous and as admiringly imitated by lesser legal lights as was his gesture of be-spectacling himself. "This is most astounding, my boy," said he. "It is most—most——"
"Gratifying?" suggested Norman with a sardonic grin.
"Not in the least, Frederick. The very reverse—the exact reverse."
Norman gave a shrug that said "Why do you persist in those frauds—and with me?" But he did not speak.
"I know," pursued Lockyer, "that you would not have taken this step without conclusive reasons. And I shall not venture the impertinence of prying or of urging."
"Thanks," said Norman drily. "Now, as to the terms of settlement."
Lockyer, from observation and from gossip, had a pretty shrewd notion of the state of his young partner's mind, and drew the not unwarranted conclusion that he would be indifferent about terms—would be "easy." With the suavity of Mr. Great-and-Good-Heart he said: "My dear boy, there can't be any question of money with us. We'll do the generously fair thing—for, we're not hucksterers but gentlemen."
"That sounds terrifying," observed the young man, with a faint ironic smile. "I feel my shirt going and the cold winds whistling about my bare body. To save time, let me state the terms. You want to be rid of me. I want to go. It's a whim with me. It's a necessity for you."
Lockyer shifted uneasily at these evidences of unimpaired mentality and undaunted spirit.