ng?"

"No, sir. These letters were addressed to you personally, and I have
not opened them," Sylvester handed a neatly arranged package to Kent.
"These," indicating several letters lying open on his desk, "are to the
firm."

"Bring them to me in half an hour," and Kent walked into his private
office, carefully closing the door behind him. Opening his suit-case he
took out his brief bag and laid it on the desk in front of him together
with the package of letters. Instead of opening the letters immediately,
he tilted back in his chair and regarded the opposite wall in deep
thought. Philip Rochester could not have selected a worse time to absent
himself; three important cases were on the calendar for immediate trial
and much depended on the firm's successful handling of them. Kent swore
softly under his breath; his last warning to Rochester, that he would
dissolve their partnership if the older man continued to neglect his
practice, had been given only a month before and upon Kent's return
from eight months' service in the Judge Advocate General's Department in
France. Apparently his warning had fallen on deaf ears and Rochester was
indulging in another periodic spree, for so Kent concluded, recalling
the unsteady penmanship of the note handed to him by the new clerk, John
Sylvester.

Kent was still frowning at the opposite wall when a faint knock sounded,
and at his call Sylvester entered.

"Here are the letters received this morning, sir, and type-written
copies of the answers to yesterday's correspondence which Mr. Rochester
dictated before leaving," Sylvester explained as he placed the papers on
Kent's desk. "If you will o.k. them, I will mail them at once."

Kent went through the letters with care, and the new clerk rose in
his estimation as he read the excellent dictation of the clearly typed
answers.

"These will do admirably," he announced. "Sit down and I will reply to
the other letters."

At the end of an hour Sylvester closed his stenographic note book and
collected the correspondence, by that time scattered over Kent's desk.

"I'll have these notes ready for your signature before lunch," he said
as he picked up a newspaper from the floor where it had tumbled during
Kent's search for some particular letter heads. "I brought in the
morning paper, sir; thought perhaps you had not seen it."

"Thanks." Kent swung his chair nearer the window and opened the
newspaper. He had purchased a copy when walking th