“No, sir.”

“Step down to his store, then, if you please, and say to him from me that he mustn’t forget the sum to be returned to-day, as I have two notes yet in bank.  Say also, that if he has any thing over, I shall be glad to have the use of it.”

The clerk departed on his errand.  In due time he returned, but with no money in his possession.

“Did you see Mr. Ellis?” asked Wilkinson.

“No, sir,” was replied.  “He hasn’t been at the store to-day.”

“Not to-day!”

“No, sir.”

“What’s the matter?  Is he sick?”

“His clerk didn’t say.”

Taking up his hat, Wilkinson left his store hurriedly.  In a few minutes he entered that of his friend.

“Where is Mr. Ellis?” he inquired.

“I don’t know, sir,” was answered by the clerk.

“Has he been here this morning?”

“No, sir.”

“He must be sick.  Have you sent to his house to make inquiry?”

“Not yet.  I have expected him all the morning.”

“He was here yesterday?”

“Not until late in the afternoon.”

“Indeed!  Did he complain of not being well?”

“No, sir.  But he didn’t look very well.”

There was something in the manner of the clerk which Wilkinson did not understand clearly at first.  But all at once it flashed upon his mind that Ellis might, in consequence of some trouble with his wife, have suddenly abandoned himself to drink.  With this thought came the remembrance of what had passed between them two days before; and this but confirmed his first impression.

“If Mr. Ellis comes in,” said he, after some moments of hurried thought, “tell him that I would like to see him.”

The clerk promised to do so.

“Hadn’t you better send to his house?” suggested Wilkinson, as he turned to leave the store.  “He may be sick.”

“I will do so,” replied the clerk, and Wilkinson retired, feeling by no means comfortable.  By this time it was nearly one o’clock, and six or seven hundred dollars were yet required to make him safe for that day’s payments.  The failure of Ellis to keep his promise laid upon him an additional burden, and gradually caused a feeling of despondency to creep in upon him.  Instead of making a new and more earnest effort to raise the money, he went back to his store, and remained there for nearly half an hour, in a brooding, disheartened state of mind.  A glance at the clock, with the minute-hand alarmingly near the figure 2, startled him at length from his dreaming inactivity; and he went forth again to raise, if possible, the money needed to keep his name from commercial dishonour.  He was successful; but there were only fifteen minutes in his favour when the exact sum he needed was made up, and his notes taken out of bank.

Two o’clock was Mr. Wilkinson’s dinner hour, and he had always, before, so arranged his bank business as to have his notes taken up long enough before that time to be ready to leave promptly for home.  But for the failure of Ellis to keep his promise, it would have been so on this day.