“Can’t help, Georgie; We don’t want to have you made a cad of. It would smash up our ‘Firm,’ wouldn’t it, Coote?”
“Rather,” said Coote.
“Besides,” said Dick, “he’s such a cad, no one would believe him if he did tell of us. My father would shut him up. He’ll be down, you know, on Tuesday.”
Heathcote breathed hard. But when it came to a question of choosing between Pledge and the “Firm,” it needed no very desperate inward battle to decide.
“What had I better do?” he asked.
“Cut him,” said Dick.
“But suppose I’ve promised him?”
“That’s a nuisance. Never mind, we’re all in it, so we’ll send him a letter from the ‘Firm’ and tell him you cry off. It’s a bad job, of course, but it can’t be helped, and we’ll back you up, won’t we, Coote?”
“I should rather say so,” replied the genial junior partner.
So, that quiet Sunday afternoon, in an unpretentious and unsentimental way, a very good stroke of work was done, not only for the soul of Georgie Heathcote, but for Templeton generally.