“Oh no!” George haltingly murmured.

“Well, this is all very well, this is——!” Mr. Enwright ruthlessly proceeded, beginning to marshal the instruments on his desk.

He had been a somewhat spectacular martyr for some time past.  A mysterious facial neuralgia had harried his nights and days.  For the greater part of a week he had dozed in an arm-chair in the office under the spell of eight tabloids of aspirin per diem.  Then a specialist had decided that seven of his side teeth, already studded with gold, must leave him.  Those teeth were not like any other person’s teeth, and in Mr. Enwright’s mind the extracting of them had become a major operation, as, for example, the taking off of a limb.  He had spent three days in a nursing home in Welbeck Street.  His life was now saved, and he was a convalescent, and passed several hours daily in giving to friends tragi-farcical accounts of existence in a nursing home.  Mr. Enwright’s career was one unending romance.

“I was just looking at that town hall affair,” said John Orgreave.

“What town hall?” his partner snapped.

“The town hall,” answered the imperturbable John.  “George here has got an idea.”

“I suppose you know Sir Hugh Corver, Bart., is to be the assessor,” said Mr. Enwright in a devastating tone.

Sir Hugh Corver, formerly a mere knight, had received a baronetcy, to Mr. Enwright’s deep disgust.  Mr. Enwright had remarked that any decent-minded man who had been a husband and childless for twenty-four years would have regarded the supplementary honour as an insult, but that Sir Hugh was not decent-minded and, moreover, was not capable of knowing an insult when he got one.  This theory of Mr. Enwright’s, however, did not a bit lessen his disgust.

“Oh yes,” John Orgreave admitted lamely.

“I for one am not going in for any more competitions with Corver as assessor,” said Mr. Enwright.  “I won’t do it.”

Faces fell.  Mr. Enwright had previously published this resolve, but it had not been taken quite seriously.  It was entirely serious.  Neuralgia and a baronetcy had given it the consistency of steel.

“It isn’t as if we hadn’t got plenty of work in the office,” said Mr. Enwright.

This was true.  The firm was exceedingly prosperous.

Nobody else spoke.

“What can you expect from a fellow like Corver?” Mr. Enwright cried, with a special glance at George.  “He’s the upas-tree of decent architecture.”

George’s mood changed immediately.  Profound discouragement succeeded to his creative stimulation.  Mr. Enwright had reason on his side.  What could you expect from a fellow like Corver?  With all the ardour of a disciple George dismissed the town hall scheme, and simultaneously his private woes surged up and took full possession of him.  He walked silently out of the room, and Lucas followed.  As a fact, Mr. Enwright ought not to have talked in such a way before the pupils.  A question of general policy should first have been discussed in private between the partners, and the result then formally announced to the staff.  Mr. Enwright was not treating his partner with proper consideration.  But Mr. Enwright, as every one said at intervals, was ‘like that’; and his partner did not seem to care greatly.