LITMIR.BIZ

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shuffled in.

      “What time did Pedlar say Mr. Pratt would be round?” he asked harshly.

      “Between eleven and twelve, sir.”

      Mr. Bultiwell glanced at his watch and grunted.

      “Where’s Mr. Haskall?”

      “Gone round to the sale, sir.”

      “He got my message?” Mr. Bultiwell asked anxiously.

      “I told him that he was on no account to buy, sir,” the cashier assented. “He was somewhat disappointed. There is a probability of a rise in hides, and most of the pits down at the tannery are empty.”

      Mr. Bultiwell groaned under his breath. His eyes met the eyes of his old employé.

      “You know why we can’t buy—at the sales, Jenkins,” he muttered.

      The man sighed as he turned away.

      “I know, sir.”

      Then there was a little stir in the place. The two men left off dusting; the clerks in the counting-house raised their heads hopefully. Jacob Pratt arrived and was ushered into the presence of the head of the firm. It was a trying moment for Mr. Bultiwell, but he did his best. He wished to be patronising, kindly and gracious. He succeeded in being cringing.

      “Glad to see you, Pratt. Glad to see you,” he said. “Try that easy-chair. A cigar, eh? No? Quite right! Don’t smoke much myself till after lunch. Seen Pedlar this morning?”

      “I’ve just come from his office,” Jacob replied.

      Mr. Bultiwell thrust his hands into his trousers pockets and leaned back in his chair.

      “Clever fellow, Pedlar, but not so clever as he thinks himself. I don’t mind telling you, Pratt, between ourselves, that it was entirely my idea that you should be approached with a view to your coming in here.”

      “Is that so?” Jacob observed quietly.

      “I knew perfectly well that you wouldn’t be content to do nothing, a young man like you, and if you’re going to keep in the leather trade at all, why not become associated with a firm you know all about, eh? I don’t want to flatter myself,” Mr. Bultiwell proceeded, with a touch of his old arrogance, “but Bultiwell’s, although we haven’t been so energetic lately, is still pretty well at the top of the tree, eh?”

      “Not quite where it was, I am afraid, Mr. Bultiwell,” Jacob objected. “I’ve been looking through the figures, you know. Profits seem to have been going down a good deal.”

      “Pooh! That’s nothing! Hides were ridiculously high all last year, but they’re on the drop now. Besides, these accountants always have to make out balance sheets from a pessimistic point of view.”

      “The present capital of the firm,” Jacob commented, “seems to me astonishingly small.”

      “What’s it figure out at?” Mr. Bultiwell enquired, with a fine show of carelessness. “Forty thousand pounds? Well, that is small—smaller than it’s been at any time during the last ten years. Perhaps I have embarked in a few too many outside investments. They are all good ’uns, though. No use having money lying idle, Mr. Pratt, these days. Now my idea was,” he went on, striving to hide a slight quaver in his voice, “that you put in, say, eighty thousand pounds, and take an equal partnership—a partnership, Pratt, remember, in Bultiwell’s.... Eh? What’s that?”

      Mr. Bultiwell looked up with a well-assumed frown of annoyance. A very fashionably dressed young lady, attractive notwithstanding a certain sullenness of expression, had entered the room carrying a great bunch of roses.

      “So sorry, dad,” she said, strolling up to the table. “I understood that you were alone. Here are the roses,” she added, laying them upon the table without enthusiasm. “Are you coming up west for luncheon to-day?”

      “My dear,” Mr. Bultiwell replied, “I am engaged just now. By the bye, you know Mr. Pratt, don’t you? Pratt, you remember my daughter?”

      Jacob, whose memories of that young lady, with her masses of yellow hair and most alluring smile, had kept him in fairyland for three months, and a little lower than hell for the last two years, took fierce command of himself as he rose to his feet and received a very cordial but somewhat forced greeting from this unexpected visitor.

      “Of course I know Mr. Pratt,” she answered, “and I hope he hasn’t altogether forgotten me. The last time I saw you, you bicycled over one evening, didn’t you, to see my father’s roses, and we made you play tennis. I remember how cross dad was because you played without shoes.”

      “Mr. Pratt is doubtless better provided in these days,” Bultiwell observed with an elephantine smile. “What about running over to see us to-night or to-morrow night in that new car of yours, Pratt, eh?”

      “Do come,” the young lady begged, with a very colourable imitation of enthusiasm. “I am longing for some tennis.”

      “You are very kind,” Jacob replied. “May I leave it open just for a short time?”

      “Certainly, certainly!” Mr. Bultiwell agreed. “Sybil, run along and sit in the waiting-room for a few minutes. I’ll take you up to the Carlton, if I can spare the time. May take Mr. Pratt, perhaps.”

      Sybil passed out, flashing a very brilliant if not wholly natural smile into Jacob’s face, as he held open the door. Mr. Bultiwell watched the latter anxiously as he returned slowly to his place. He was not altogether satisfied with the result of his subtle little plot.

      “Where were we?” he continued, struggling hard to persevere in that cheerfulness which sat upon him in these days like an ill-fitting garment. “Ah! I know—eighty thousand pounds and an equal partnership. How does that appeal to you, Mr. Pratt?”

      “There were one or two points in the balance sheet which struck me,” Jacob confessed, gazing down at his well-creased trousers. “The margin between assets and liabilities, though small, might be considered sufficient, but the liability on bills under discount seemed to me extraordinarily large.”

      Mr. Bultiwell’s pencil, which had been straying idly over the blotting pad by his side, stopped. He looked at his visitor with a frown.

      “Credits must always be large in our trade,” he said sharply. “You know that, Mr. Pratt.”

      “Your credits, however,” Jacob pointed out, “are abnormal. I ventured to take out a list of six names, on each one of whom you have acceptances running to the tune of twenty or thirty thousand pounds.”

      “The majority of my customers,” Mr. Bultiwell declared, with a little catch in his breath, “are as safe as the Bank of England.”

      Jacob produced a very elegant morocco pocketbook, with gold edges, and studied a slip of paper which he held towards his companion.

      “Here is a list of the firms,” he continued. “I have interviewed most of them and made it worth their while to tell me the truth. There isn’t one of them that isn’t hopelessly insolvent. They are being kept on their legs by you and your bankers, simply and solely to bolster up the credit of the House of Bultiwell.”

      “Sir!” Mr. Bultiwell thundered.

      “I should drop that tone, if I were you,” Jacob advised coldly. “You have been a bully all your life, and a cruel one at that. Lately you have become dishonest. When the firm of Bultiwell is compelled to file its petition in bankruptcy, which I imagine will be a matter of only a few weeks, I do not envy you your examination before the official receiver.”

      Mr. Bultiwell collapsed like a pricked bladder. He shrivelled in his clothes. There was a whine in his tone as he substituted appeal for argument.

      “There’s good business to be done here still,” he pleaded. “Even

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