Mr. Waddington’s expression for a few moments was an interesting and instructive study.  His jaw had fallen, but he was still too bewildered to realize the situation properly.

“But who told him?” he gasped.

“I did,” Burton replied gently.  “I could not possibly let him remain in ignorance of the facts.”

“You couldn’t—­what?”

“I could not let him the house without explaining all the circumstances, sir,” Burton declared, watching his senior anxiously.  “I am sure you would not have wished me to do anything of the sort, would you?”

What Mr. Waddington said was unimportant.  There was very little that he forgot and he was an auctioneer with a low-class clientele and a fine flow of language.  When he had finished, the office-boy was dumb with admiration.  Burton was looking a little pained and he had the shocked expression of a musician who has been listening to a series of discords.  Otherwise he was unmoved.

“Your duty was to let that house,” Mr. Waddington wound up, striking the palm of one hand with the fist of the other.  “What do I give you forty-four shillings a week for, I should like to know?  To go and blab trade secrets to every customer that comes along?  If you couldn’t get him to sign the lease, you ought to have worked a deposit, at any rate.  He’d have had to forfeit that, even if he’d found out afterwards.”

“I am sorry,” Burton said, speaking in a much lower tone than was usual with him, but with a curious amount of confidence.  “It would have been a moral falsehood if I had attempted anything of the sort.  I could not possibly offer the house to Mr. Lynn or anybody else, without disclosing its drawbacks.”

The auctioneer’s face had become redder.  His eyes seemed on the point of coming out of his head.  He became almost incoherent.

“God bless my soul!” he spluttered.  “Have you gone mad, Burton?  What’s come to you since the morning?  Have you changed into a blithering fool, or what?”

“I think not, sir,” Burton replied, gravely.  “I don’t—­exactly remember for the moment,” he went on with a slight frown.  “My head seems a little confused, but I cannot believe that it has been our custom to conduct our business in the fashion you are suggesting.”

Mr. Waddington walked round the office, holding his head between his hands.

“I don’t suppose either of us has been drinking at this hour in the morning,” he muttered, when he came to a standstill once more.  “Look here, Burton, I don’t want to do anything rash.  Go home—­never mind the time—­go home this minute before I break out again.  Come to-morrow morning, as usual.  We’ll talk it out then.  God bless my soul!” he added, as Burton picked up his hat with a little sigh of relief and turned toward the door.  “Either I’m drunk or the fellow’s got religion or something!  I never heard such infernal rubbish in my life!”

“Made a nasty remark about my tie just now, sir,” Clarkson said, with dignity, as his senior disappeared.  “Quite uncalled for.  I don’t fancy he can be well.”