business. Well, I followed his advice, sir, and
here I am. Now, supposing you take home
these reports, work through 'em, figures and all,
abstract them, and tell us what you think of it?
You'll find it hard enough for your teeth, my
friend, but I'll swear you'll be—let me see
—three and a quarter per cent better."

This was really kind advice; and, going home,
Mr. Tillotson turned it over. He might try it,
he thought, and so he plunged eagerly into the
reports. It was a very hard nut indeed, as Mr.
Bowater had said. He attacked it bravely, and
sat up very many nights hard at work, until at
last, after one long night, it was cracked. He
came with it in this state to the office, very
weary in mind and body, and not, as may be
conceived, in the least benefited by Mr. Bowater's
remedy.

It was a report on an Indian branch of
the bank—the "Bhootan Foncier Extension
Branch"—which required the aid of rupees and
Indian exchanges, and referred to ryots, and such
things.

"Why, bless me, Tillotson," said Mr. Bowater,
when he saw him, " what have you been
doing to yourself? You should take care, you
know—not push the thing too far. Well—done
it? Capital! For here is Mr. Mackenzie just
fresh from Calcutta, and you can settle the
whole thing with him. Go into that room,
Tillotson, take the reports and Mackenzie with
you, and not a soul shall disturb you till you
are done. There."

Mr. Tillotson and the Eastern Mr. Mackenzie
withdrew into the room. They both went into
the routine of business, the former putting his
hand very often to his forehead. Soon the table
was spread out with papers, and books of
papers, and great reports, and files and dockets,
all bearing on the Eastern Bhootan Branch of
the great bank. Mr. Tillotson, with an effort,
however, went through it all mechanically, but
still with great practical sense. For, as Mr.
Bowater said, " Tillotson, when he chose to lay
his mind to a thing, was about as good a man of
business as you could light on at any desk
between this and Temple Bar." As he turned
over the papers listlessly, and listened to the
ceaseless flow of Mr. Mackenzie's explanations,
delivered with a strong Scotch burr, his eye fell
upon a little sheaf of papers pinned together,
and on one of which he saw the name " Ross."
He took it up eagerly, turned them over one by
one. They were all bills, and a letter or two.

"Oh, that fellow," said Mr. Mackenzie,
interrupting himself; "you are looking at his
little account. He gave us trouble enough,
he and his friend. A nice pair. I was up at
the hills at the time, or we should never have
'touched' them."

There was interest in Mr. Tillotson's eyes.

"We were glad to compound with him on
any terms, and, as it was, he 'did us'
shamefully. But I was up at the hills at the time.
Mrs. Mackenzie, you know, was just then on
the point of———No matter now. When I
came back, however, I soon frightened the
pair, and I think I would have saved every
shilling for the bank without noise or trouble,
only then came that Bhootan scrape, which
disposed of all our chance."

"What scrape?" said Mr. Tillotson, eagerly.

"Oh, you heard it, of course," said the other,
"though I believe it was kept out of the
papers—I mean, about torturing the Coolie.
They were half drunk. He and his friend came
home one night and found this Coolie fellow
hadn't got something ready which they had
ordered. The way they tortured this poor
devil—sticking fusees under his nails, burning his
eyebrows, writing his name on his back with hot
wood—it was the most barbarous thing you
could fancy. The man died of it."

"And was there no punishment?" he asked.

"Oh, the thing was talked about, and an
inquiry spoken of; but they managed to get the
relatives out of the way. Then it was inquired
into, and it was too late. A little money goes
a great way in Bhootan. But I had it from my
servant, who knew it all, and, I believe, saw
some of it. Ross, he said, was like a savage;
his friend Grainger was trying to save the poor
devil."

"Grainger?" said Mr. Tillotson. "To be
sure. I have met him."

"Yes," said Mr. Mackenzie, " he's a great
traveller. But that Ross, for a young man, is
the most dangerous, ill-conditioned savage I
ever met. I almost think the sun had
something to do with it. It seems at times like
drink on him; but, sair," added Mr. Mackenzie,
in his strong native accent, "it is the
drunkenness of a bad hairt and eveel paissions."

"And did you know any more of him?" asked
Mr. Tillotson, a little eagerly.

"Not I, so much as others," said Mr.
Mackenzie, moving his papers restlessly, as if they
were now losing time.  " There were all sorts
of stories, you know. There was that business
of Mrs. Magregor, which I know of myself, for
poor Sandie told me himself when he was lying
heart-broken on his bed just before he died.
All that was vairy, vairy bad. A young and
winsome creature ruined, ruined!"

"But these may be stories——"

"I can gie you chaipter and vairse," said
Mr. Mackenzie, "at another time, sir. It
would shock your very ears to hear all I could
tell you about that young man. And then his
behaviour to the bank, sir, beyond all——"

They went back to the Bhootan reports.
But Mr. Tillotson was very abstracted and
restless, and could hardly follow the details;
so much so, that Mr. Bowater, later, was
inclined to retract the handsome commendation
he was giving of Mr. Tillotson being a "first-class
man of business." When the day was done,
Mr. Tillotson said, anxiously, to the Indian
manager, "Could you spare me an hour in the
morning, and tell me more about what you have
been saying, and with more particularity? AIl
this concerns a person in whom I am interested,
and who it is very right should know something
of it."