Then, one morning, at its old-accustomed hour, the motor-car that the sick man had most affected purred up to the house. The door opened. The sick man, apparently no longer a sick man, came out, neat and trim in a suit of russet brown, stepped into the car and was started for his office before the quickest reporter could get a word with him.
"He has quite recovered," said the doctors, when the newspaper men overhauled them, and, although they swathed the answer in long phrases, they would say no more than that.
"He's quite well again and will not leave New York," said Simpson to the representatives of the press when they reached his Wall Street offices; and Simpson would add nothing save that his employer was too busy with accumulated work to have time for press interviewers.
Simpson, however, and Conover too, and all the office-force and all the brokers, knew something more. They knew that, whereas their master was generally not quick of temper, he had returned to work in an ugly mood.
There was, indeed, a great deal of work for him to do: enough to ruffle the temper of any man. He did it all grimly, speedily, with no waste of words. He attended to each detail with as much energy and care as he gave to every other detail, and one detail that he dealt with in a necessarily long talk with Hallett he dealt with thus:
"What about that Huber matter?" he asked.
Rivington was not in the room, but the master of the room was seated at the head of the table just as he always seated himself when both Hallett and Rivington were there. He crouched with his large hands on the mahogany surface, the thick fingers extended, his elbows raised at right angles to his torso and pointing ceilingward.
Hallett was as near to nervousness as he could be brought.
"Nothin' yet," he said.
"Hasn't any action been taken?" snapped the man at the head of the table.