his correspondence--and eagerly
chose out three--one from his bankers, one from his Lincolnshire agent,
and one from the _Clarion_ office, undoubtedly this time in Wilkins's
hand.

He read them, grew a little pale, swore under his breath, and, angrily
flinging the letters away from him, he took up his cigarette again and
thought.

The letter from his bankers asked his attention in stiff terms to a
largely overdrawn account, and entirely declined to advance a sum of
money for which he had applied to them without the guarantee of two
substantial names in addition to his own. The letter from his agent
warned him that the extraordinary drought of the past six weeks,
together with the general agricultural depression, would certainly mean
a large remission of rents at the June quarter day, and also informed
him that the holders of his co-operative farm would not be able to pay
their half-yearly interest on the capital advanced to them by the
landlord.

As to the third letter, it was in truth much more serious than the two
others. Wilkins, the passionate and suspicious workman, of great natural
ability, who had been in many ways a thorn in Wharton's side since the
beginning of his public career, was now member for a mining
constituency. His means of support were extremely scanty, and at the
opening of the new Parliament Wharton had offered him well-paid work on
the _Clarion_ newspaper. It had seemed to the proprietor of the
_Clarion_ a way of attaching a dangerous man to himself, perhaps also of
controlling him. Wilkins had grudgingly accepted, understanding
perfectly well what was meant.

Since then the relation between the two men had been one of perpetual
friction. Wilkins's irritable pride would yield nothing, either in the
House or in the _Clarion_ office, to Wharton's university education and
class advantages, while Wharton watched with alarm the growing influence
of this insubordinate and hostile member of his own staff on those
labour circles from which the _Clarion_ drew its chief support.

In the letter he had just read Wilkins announced to the proprietor of
the _Clarion_ that in consequence of the "scandalous mismanagement" of
that paper's handling of a certain trade arbitration which had just
closed, he, Wilkins, could no longer continue to write for it, and
begged to terminate his engagement at once, there being no formal
agreement between himself and Wharton as to length of notice on either
side. A lively