He was a highly-strung, nervous man, quick to feel and to appreciate, and the averted looks and monosyllabic remarks and replies of a man into whose company he could not avoid being thrown began to sting him to something like madness.

And one day, left alone in the office with Mallalieu when Stoner the clerk had gone to get his dinner, the irritation became unbearable, and he turned on his partner in a sudden white heat of ungovernable and impotent anger.
"Hang you!" he hissed between his set teeth.

"I believe you think I did that job! And if you do, blast you, why don't you say so, and be done with it ?" Mallalieu, who was standing on the hearth, warming his broad back at the fire, thrust his hands deeply into his pockets and looked half-sneeringly at his partner out of his screwed-up eyes.
"I should advise you to keep yourself cool," he said with affected quietness.

"There's more than me'll think a good deal if you chance to let yourself out like that." "You do think it!" reiterated Cotherstone passionately.

"Damn it, d'ye think I haven't noticed it?
Always looking at me as if--as if----" "Now then, keep yourself calm," interrupted Mallalieu.