“I’m not well,” he answered, “and I don’t want so much responsibility.”
“But what about the business?” suggested Mr. Glenning.
Then Mr. Constable astounded them.
“Let me retire,” he answered wearily.
But Mr. Constable’s partners did not propose to have the business sacrificed in any such way. They would not hear of his retirement, and when he insisted, Mr. Hertzog remarked very pointedly that he did not presume to understand this gentle resignation business, but if there was any little game on hand he proposed to be in it for the next three years at least. About money matters Mr. Hertzog cherished no illusions, and at the word dollar Hester Street instantly reclaimed him.
There was no “little game,” Mr. Constable hastened to assure him. It was simply that he could not do justice to the firm or himself. He was a sick man—a very sick man.
“Then take a vacation. Go into the country and stay as long as you like, but drop this retirement nonsense,” commanded Mr. Hertzog, and the senior partner turned away wearily without another word.
“It’s the reaction after that cussed Horton affair,” Mr. Glenning remarked; “he was snappy enough about that until Mackenzie was finally knocked out, but since then he’s drooped. Reaction, I suppose—don’t you?”
“Yes.”
Mr. Hertzog was seldom more than monosyllabic, but his eyes followed the wilted little figure of his partner with more anxiety than the word implied. Alone in his private room he frowned, muttering to himself: