"Is that so?" said Mr. Thomieson, his eyes opening.
"It's a fact. And he's started cracking jokes with the clerks."
"Aye, I heard him yesterday myself. It sounded awful bad in this office."
"I tell you what it'll end in," said Andrew. "It'll end in our losing our business—that'll be the end of it. And this is what he calls 'a few years of quiet usefulness'!"
The junior partner's upper lip seemed to hang like a curtain half covering his face. Behind it he swore so distinctly that the confidential clerk discreetly withdrew.
CHAPTER II
"It's quite remarkable how well I'm keeping—quite astonishing," said Mr. Walkingshaw to himself, as he continued his walk with his recovered hat perched at the angle that had so surprised his acquaintances.
A month had passed since the stormy afternoon when he had said farewell to his family, and he now looked back upon that adieu as the rashest and most premature act of his life. Andrew must have frightened him; that was the only conceivable excuse for his conduct, seen in the white light of his present rude health; and he secretly decided that the junior partner had been getting a little too much rope. If you once let these lads kick up their heels, the deuce was in it. He would do nothing unjust, but he would see that he didn't encourage Andrew to alarm him again. Thus does the virtue even of the most exemplary occasionally over-exert itself.