"Yes, Mr James."
"What time is he coming?"
"Half-past eleven."
"Tell him to come to-morrow."
"I'm afraid he won't. I'm——"
"If he won't," said Mr Hancock with some acerbity, "tell him to go to the devil. I don't want his business especially—let him find some one else. Now see here, about these letters."
He went into the morning letters, dictating replies to the more important ones and leaving the rest to the discretion of his clerk.
"And, Bridgewater," said Mr Hancock, as the senior clerk turned to depart, "I am expecting a lady to call here at half-past ten or quarter to eleven: show her in, it's Miss Lambert."
"You have had no word from Mr Charles Bevan, sir, since he called the other day?"
"Not a word. He is a very hot-headed young man; he inherits the Bevan temper, the Bevan temper," reiterated James Hancock in a reflective tone, tapping his snuff-box and taking a leisurely pinch. "I remember his father John Bevan at Ipswich, during the election, threatening to horsewhip my father; then when he found he was in the wrong, or rather that his own rascally solicitor was in the wrong, he apologised very handsomely and came to us. The family affairs have been in our hands ever since, as you know, and, though I say it myself, they could not have been in better."