'What do you part for?' abruptly inquired Dr. Bevary one day of the two brothers, coming into the counting-house and catching them together.
Mr. Henry raised his eyebrows. Mr. Hunter spoke volubly.
'The business is getting too large. It will be better divided.'
'Moonshine!' cried the doctor, quietly. 'That's what you have been cramming your wives with; it won't do for me. When a concern gets unwieldy, a man takes a partner to help him on with it; you are separating. There's many a firm larger than yours. Do you remember the proverb of the bundle of sticks?'
But neither Dr. Bevary nor anybody else got at a better reason than that for the measure. The dissolution of partnership took place; it was duly gazetted, and the old firm became two. Austin remained with Mr. Hunter, and he was the only living being who gave a guess, or who could give a guess, at the real cause of separation—the drawing out of that five thousand pounds.
And yet—it was not the drawing out of that first five thousand pounds, that finally decided Mr. Henry Hunter to enforce the step, so much as the thought that other thousands might perhaps be following it. He could not divest his mind of the fear.