The accountant nodded approvingly.  He took up the balance sheet which they had been perusing and placed it in its envelope.

“I shall now,” he said, “call upon Mr. Weatherley, and I am sure he will be most gratified.  I understand that our next meeting is to be down here.”

Mr. Jarvis beamed.

“Although I must say,” he admitted, “that the responsibility has been a great pleasure, still, we shall be heartily glad to see Mr. Weatherley back again.”

“I am sure of it,” the accountant assented.  “I understand that he has made a complete recovery.”

“Absolutely his own self again, sir,” Mr. Jarvis declared, “and looking better than ever.”

“Odd thing, though, that loss of memory,” the accountant remarked.  “I was talking to the doctor about it only the other day.  He seems to have wandered away into some sort of hiding, under the impression that he had committed a crime, and now that he is getting better he has absolutely forgotten all about it.  He just thinks that he has had an ordinary illness and has had to stay away from business for a time.”

“Queer thing altogether, sir,” Mr. Jarvis admitted; “a queer business, sir.  However, it’s over and done with, and the less said about it, the better.  We are both very much obliged to you, Mr. Neville, for your kind offices, and I am only thankful that the results have been so satisfactory.”

Mr. Jarvis conducted his visitor to the door and returned to Arnold with beaming face.  In anticipation of the accountant’s visit he was wearing a frock-coat, which was already a shade too small for him.  He carefully divested himself of this garment, put on his linen office-coat and turned towards his companion.

“Chetwode,” he said, “I have a proposition to make.  The firm shall stand us a little dinner this evening, which we will take together.  We will go up to the west-end.  You shall choose the proper place and order everything—­just the best you can think of.  The firm shall pay.  Mr. Weatherley would be quite agreeable, I am sure.”

Arnold forced himself to accept the suggestion with some appearance of pleasure.

“Delighted!” he agreed.  “We’ll have to finish up the letters and go through this mail first.”

“Just so,” Mr. Jarvis replied.  “After that, we’ll shut up shop.  This is quite a red-letter day, Chetwode.  I knew that we’d held our own, but I must confess that I found those figures most exhilarating.  Our little bonus, too, will be worth having.”

Later on, they found their way to a restaurant in the Strand, where Mr. Jarvis ate and drank perhaps better than he had ever done in his life.  The evening to him was one of unalloyed pleasure, and he was genuinely disappointed when Arnold pleaded an engagement as an excuse for not finishing up at a music-hall.  About nine o’clock the two men parted, Mr. Jarvis to spend the rest of the evening alone, with a big cigar in his mouth and an unaccustomed feeling of levity in his head.  Arnold, after a moment’s hesitation, walked slowly back to his empty rooms.