It might perhaps seem strange to dear Mills that his partner had been forging his signature, though only in jest.
"'Fraid I'm rather late," said Mills.
"Not at all, my dear fellow," said Taynton without the slightest touch of ill-humour.

"How are you?
There's very little to do; I want your signature to this and this, and your careful perusal of that.

Mrs.
Assheton's letter?
No, that only concerns me; I have dealt with it." A quarter of an hour was sufficient, and at the end Timmins carried the papers away leaving the two partners together.

Then, as soon as the door closed, Mills spoke.
"I've been thinking over our conversation of last night," he said, "and there are some points I don't think you have quite appreciated, which I should like to put before you." Something inside Mr.Taynton's brain, the same watcher perhaps who looked at Morris so closely the evening before, said to him.

"He is going to try it on." But it was not the watcher but his normal self that answered.