signature to this and this, and your careful perusal of that. Mrs.
Assheton's letter? No, that only concerns me; I have dealt with it."

A quarter of an hour was sufficient, and at the end Timmins carried the
papers away leaving the two partners together. Then, as soon as the door
closed, Mills spoke.

"I've been thinking over our conversation of last night," he said, "and
there are some points I don't think you have quite appreciated, which I
should like to put before you."

Something inside Mr. Taynton's brain, the same watcher perhaps who looked
at Morris so closely the evening before, said to him. "He is going to try
it on." But it was not the watcher but his normal self that answered. He
beamed gently on his partner.

"My dear fellow, I might have been sure that your quick mind would have
seen new aspects, new combinations," he said.

Mills leaned forward over the table.

"Yes, I have seen new aspects, to adopt your words," he said, "and I will
put them before you. These financial operations, shall we call them, have
been going on for two years now, have they not? You began by losing a
large sum in South Africans--"

"We began," corrected Mr. Taynton, gently. He was looking at the other
quite calmly; his face expressed no surprise at all; if there was
anything in his expression beyond that of quiet kindness, it was
perhaps pity.

"I said 'you,'" said Mills in a hectoring tone, "and I will soon explain
why. You lost a large sum in South Africans, but won it back again in
Americans. You then again, and again contrary to my advice, embarked in
perfect wild-cat affairs, which ended in our--I say 'our' here--getting
severely scratched and mauled. Altogether you have frittered away
L30,000, and have placed the remaining ten in a venture which to my mind
is as wild as all the rest of your unfortunate ventures. These
speculations have, almost without exception, been choices of your own,
not mine. That was _one_ of the reasons why I said 'you,' not 'we.'"

He paused a moment.

"Another reason is," he said, "because without any exception the
transactions have taken place on your advice and in your name, not in
mine."

That was a sufficiently meaning statement, but Mills did not wish his
partner to be under any misapprehension as to what he implied.

"In other words," he said, "I can deny absolutely all knowledge of the
whole of those operations."

Mr. Taynton gave a sudden start, as if the significance of th