ng
through the motions of spitting every little while as he talked, more a
matter of nervous habit than saliva. He spat dryly three times as he
stared at the approaching Kendrick and greeted the erstwhile captain of
the 'Varsity rugby champions with a grin that bared two rows of teeth.

"Ye gods! What a fall was there, my countrymen! Wow! Who slipped you
the haymaker, Ken?"

"Stick to the quotation, Chic," laughed Phil good-naturedly, barely
pausing in his stride. "Got it in the fog last night--Canoe Club
stairs in the dark. I had a pretty bad fall."

"So did Humpty-Dumpty!" Mr. White's grin widened, and with a
deliberate wink and a final spit he waved his hand and walked off,
laughing loudly.

The owner of the black eye went his way, face set in abnormally
forbidding lines. People smiled as they passed him on the street. He
would have given a ten-dollar bill to have met the redoubtable Mr.
McCorquodale around the next corner. He thought of buying one of those
pink shields; it would not hide it all, but it might help. He tried
tying his handkerchief over his eye as a bandage, but felt so foolish
that he tore it off and laughed at himself.

The office of Blatchford Ferguson, barrister, etc., in the Broker's
Bank Building, was laid out along somewhat unconventional lines. Of
course the public entrance from the corridor gave admission to an outer
office where two or three stenographers operated their typewriters
under the eye of a law student, while just inside the railing of the
entranceway sat a pompadoured office boy who occupied himself variously
with an old-fashioned letter-press alongside the vault, with sharpening
lead-pencils, chewing gum and guarding the gate in the railing. But
the partitions which enclosed this general office were built solid from
floor to ceiling and the only sign of an inner presence was a door
directly behind the youthful sentry, the ground glass of which bore the
single word, "Secretary," in neat gold and black lettering.

The Secretary's office had a private entrance from the public corridor
of the building and an inside door, lettered "Loans and Investments."
On through this office was still another door, inscribed "Insurance
Department," while beyond this second sanctum was a third door which
led into the _sanctum sanctorum_ with its unexpected exit upon a narrow
back hallway and a dusty flight of stairs by which it was possible
without undue publicity to reach the str