'The fact is, Lloyd, you are no worse off than I am. I can't realize it myself.'

'Dear me, it is stunning, now isn't it? Why, it's just three months today since we went to the What Cheer restaurant- went there at two in the morning, and had a chop and coffee after a hard six-hours grind over those Extension papers, and I tried to persuade you to come to London with me, and offered to get leave of absence for you and pay all your expenses, and give you something over if I succeeded in making the sale; and you would not listen to me, said I wouldn't succeed, and you couldn't afford to lose business and be no end of time getting the hang of things again when you got back home. And yet here you are. How odd it all is! How did you happen to come, and whatever did give you this incredible start?

'Oh, just an accident. It's a long story - a romance, one may say. I'll tell you all about it, but only at the end of this month. But how's the trade getting along?'

His cheerfulness vanished like a breath, and he said with a sigh: You were a true prophet, Hal, a true prophet. I wish I hadn't come. I don't want to talk about it.'

'I want to hear the whole story, every word.'