it?"

Lockyer strolled to the window, looked out as if searching for something
he failed to find, came back to the chair on the opposite side of the
desk from Norman, seated himself. "I don't know how to begin," said he.
"It is hard to say painful things to anyone I have such an affection for
as I have for you."

Norman pushed a sheet of letter paper across the desk toward his
partner. "Perhaps that will help you," observed he carelessly.

Lockyer put on his nose glasses with the gesture of grace and intellect
that was famous. He read--a brief demand for a release from the
partnership and a request for an immediate settlement. Lockyer blinked
off his glasses with the gesture that was as famous and as admiringly
imitated by lesser legal lights as was his gesture of be-spectacling
himself. "This is most astounding, my boy," said he. "It is
most--most----"

"Gratifying?" suggested Norman with a sardonic grin.

"Not in the least, Frederick. The very reverse--the exact reverse."

Norman gave a shrug that said "Why do you persist in those frauds--and
with _me_?" But he did not speak.

"I know," pursued Lockyer, "that you would not have taken this step
without conclusive reasons. And I shall not venture the impertinence of
prying or of urging."

"Thanks," said Norman drily. "Now, as to the terms of settlement."

Lockyer, from observation and from gossip, had a pretty shrewd notion of
the state of his young partner's mind, and drew the not unwarranted
conclusion that he would be indifferent about terms--would be "easy."
With the suavity of Mr. Great-and-Good-Heart he said: "My dear boy,
there can't be any question of money with us. We'll do the generously
fair thing--for, we're not hucksterers but gentlemen."

"That sounds terrifying," observed the young man, with a faint ironic
smile. "I feel my shirt going and the cold winds whistling about my bare
body. To save time, let _me_ state the terms. You want to be rid of me. I
want to go. It's a whim with me. It's a necessity for you."

Lockyer shifted uneasily at these evidences of unimpaired mentality and
undaunted spirit.

"Here are my terms," proceeded Norman. "You are to pay me forty thousand
a year for five years--unless I open an office or join another firm. In
that case, payments are to cease from the date of my re-entering
practice."

Lockyer leaned back and laughed benignantly. "My dear Norman," he said
with a gently remonstrant shake of the head, "those