So I left him at his desk, and for a week was busy with my own affairs. Late the following Friday night I dropped in at Harley’s rooms to see how matters were progressing. As I entered I saw him at his desk, his back turned towards me, silhouetted in the lamp-light, scratching away furiously with his pen.
“Ah!” I thought, as my eye took in the picture, “it goes at last. I guess I won’t disturb his train of thought.”
And I tried to steal softly out, for he had not observed my entrance. As luck would have it, I stepped upon the sill of the door as I passed out, and it creaked.
“Hello!” cried Harley, wheeling about in his chair, startled by the sound. “Oh! It’s you, is it?” he added, as he recognized me. “What are you up to? Come back here. I want to see you.”
His manner was cheerful, but I could see that the cheerfulness was assumed. The color had completely left his cheeks, and great rings under his eyes betokened weariness of spirit.
“I didn’t want to disturb you,” said I, returning. “You seem to have your pen on a clear track, with full steam up.”
“I had,” he said, quietly. “I was just finishing up that Herring, Beemer, & Chadwick business.”
“Aha!” I cried, grasping his hand and shaking it. “I congratulate you. Success at last, eh?”
“Well, I’ve got something done—and that’s it,” he said, and he tossed the letter block upon which he had been writing across the table to me. “Read that, and tell me what you think of it.”
I read it over carefully. It was a letter to Messrs. Herring, Beemer, & Chadwick, in which Stuart asked to be relieved of the commission he had undertaken: