“There is something I want to say to you before you go.”
Reuben Tracy stood at the door of a small inner office, and looked steadily at his partner as he uttered these words.
There was little doing in the law in these few dead-and-alive weeks between terms, and the exquisitely dressed Horace, having gone through his letters and signed some few papers, still with one of his gloves on, had decided not to wait for his father, but to call instead at the hardware store.
“I am in a bit of a hurry just now.” he said, drawing on the other glove. “I may look in again before dinner. Won’t it keep till then?”
“It isn’t very long,” answered Reuben. “I’ve concluded that the partnership was a mistake. It is open to either of us to terminate it at will. I wish you would look around, and let me know as soon as you see your way to—to—”
“To getting out,” interposed Horace. In his present mood the idea rather pleased him than otherwise. “With the greatest pleasure in the world. You have not been alone in thinking that the partnership was a mistake, I can assure you.”
“Then we understand each other?”
“Perfectly.”
“And you will be back, say at—”
“Say at half-past five.”