As red-haired men always affect blue neck-ties, as dark complexioned men choose light coloured garments, as stout men like coats which button tight round their waists; so on the same inexplicable principle of selection, Mr. Forde would have liked to strut about St. Vedast Wharf arrayed in a similar suit to that which made Rupert Halling look in the eyes of City men so handsome and disreputable a vagabond.
"I was expecting to see you earlier," remarked Mr. Forde.
"Yes," Rupert assented, waiting his opportunity to make the communication he had been over-persuaded to convey all by himself into the enemy's camp.
"Anything new?" continued Mr. Forde.
"One thing, which I fear it will not much please you to hear," was the reply.
Mr. Forde looked up from the purposeless tracings he had resumed after the first greetings were over. He looked up, his face darkening with the approach of one of those tempests of passion Rupert, as well as every other person who chanced to be unpleasantly connected with the General Chemical Company's Manager, had felt sweep over him.
Well, it was all nearly at an end. He had stood many a cannonade without flinching, and another broadside could not much matter.
"I have come to tell you," he went on hurriedly, without giving the other time to speak, "that Mr. Mortomley cannot go on any longer. He must call a meeting of his creditors."
Holding the arms of his chair with both hands, Mr. Forde rose, gasping, literally gasping with rage.
"Where is he now?" he asked hoarsely. His voice was so strange and choked, Rupert could scarcely have recognized it.