Nicholas’s eyes had blazed.
“How dare you!” he had shouted.
“You’ve a year left,” went on the man calmly. “I should advise you to see what use you can make of it.”
“The first use I’ll make of it is to order you from the house. You can go at once.” Nicholas had pointed towards the door.
The man had got up.
“All right,” he had said, looking at him for the first time in the last ten minutes. “But don’t forget. You’ve got the year, you know.”
“To hell with the year,” said Nicholas curtly.
“Damn the fellow,” he had said as the door had closed behind him. But the very truth of the words had left a wound,—a clean-cut wound however. There was never any bungling where Doctor Hilary was concerned.
And now incisive, sharp, came the taps of the hammer on it, taps dealt by Job Grantley’s chance words.
“Confound both the men,” he muttered. “But the fellow deserved the five pounds. It was the first interest I’ve had for fifteen years. The kind of entrance I’d have made myself, too; or perhaps mine would have been even a bit more unusual, eh, Nick the dare-devil!”