object the improvement and moral advancement of young men.  He was a liberal patron of educational schemes, he sang a fervent and fruity tenor in the choir of St. Agnes, he was a regular communicant, his nature looked toward good, and turned its eyes away from evil.  To do him justice he was not a hypocrite, though, if all about him were known, and a plebiscite taken, it is probable that he would be unanimously condemned.  Yet the universal opinion would be wrong:  he was no hypocrite, but only had the bump of self-preservation enormously developed.  He had cheated and swindled, but he was genuinely opposed to cheating and swindling.  He was cheating and swindling now, in buying the option of Boston Copper.  But he did not know that:  he wanted to repair the original wrong, to hand back to Morris his fortune unimpaired, and also to save himself.  But of these two wants, the second, it must be confessed, was infinitely the stronger.  To save himself there was perhaps nothing that he would stick at.  However, it was his constant wish and prayer that he might not be led into temptation.  He knew well what his particular temptation was, namely this instinct of self-preservation, and constantly thought and meditated about it.  He knew that he was hardly himself when the stress of it came on him; it was like a possession.

Mills, though an excellent partner and a man of most industrious habits, had, so Mr. Taynton would have admitted, one little weak spot.  He never was at the office till rather late in the morning.  True, when he came, he soon made up for lost time, for he was possessed, as we have seen, of a notable quickness and agility of mind, but sometimes Taynton found that he was himself forced to be idle till Mills turned up, if his signature or what not was required for papers before work could be further proceeded with.  This, in fact, was the case next morning, and from half past eleven Mr. Taynton had to sit idly in his office, as far as the work of the firm was concerned until his partner arrived.  It was a little tiresome that this should happen to-day, because there was nothing else that need detain him, except those deeds for the execution of which his partner’s signature was necessary, and he could, if only Mills had been punctual, have gone out to Rottingdean before lunch, and inspected the Church school there in the erection of which he had taken so energetic an interest.  Timmins, however, the gray-haired old head clerk, was in the office with him, and Mr. Taynton always liked a chat with Timmins.

“And the grandson just come home, has he Mr. Timmins?” he was saying.  “I must come and see him.  Why he’ll be six years old, won’t he, by now?”

“Yes, sir, turned six.”

“Dear me, how time goes on!  The morning is going on, too, and still Mr. Mills isn’t here.”

He took a quill pen and drew a half sheet of paper toward him, poised his pen a moment and then wrote quickly.

“What a pity I can’t sign for him,” he said, passing his paper over to the clerk.  “Look at that; now even you, Timmins, though you have seen Mr. Mills’s handwriting ten thousand times, would be ready to swear that the signature was his, would you not?”