The instructions he had received were simple but imperative, and he had gone to unusual lengths in suggesting to Mr.Sheratt, the manager of the Bank, a course of greater leniency.

That gentleman's only reply was a brief order to proceed with the case.
With Mr.Sheratt, therefore, Mr.Rae proceeded to deal.

His first move was to invite the Bank manager to lunch, in order to discuss some rather important matters relative to one of the great estates of which Mr.Rae was supposed to be the guardian.

Some fifty years' experience of Mr.Sheratt as boy and man had let Mr.Rae into a somewhat intimate knowledge of the workings of that gentleman's mind.

Under the mollifying influences of the finest of old port, Mr.Rae made the discovery that as with Mr.Thomlinson, so with Mr.Sheratt there was every disposition to oblige, and indeed an eagerness to yield to the lawyer's desires; it was not Mr.Sheratt, but the Bank that was immovable.