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Flagg, Bentnor & Penn; and the question of his taking a much-needed rest had been gravely discussed by the other two partners more than once during the year; but the mere suggestion of it put him into such a tantrum that they let it drop, trusting to a redistribution of the work of the office to lighten somewhat Penn's burden.
Bentnor was short, stout, slightly bald, and somehow radiated comfort, even while sitting astride of a cane-bottomed chair, and smoking another man's brand of cigarettes, in a one-windowed room nine feet by ten and a half. "Helen Bentnor Penn's a great girl, isn't she, Rob?" No response came from the huddled figure on the bed.
So all the fashionable divorcées hitherto Bentnor's specialty were turned over to the junior partner, as a slight means of professional diversion. But he threw himself into the cases of his clients, male and female, with the same old unsparing fervor, and Flagg and Bentnor the latter was Penn's brother-in-law raised their eyebrows and shook their heads behind his back.
"Bas Bleu," said Bentnor, concealing his triumph at his own tactics in the lighting of his twenty-third cigarette. Robert groaned, and his head again drooped in unspeakable humiliation. And in that moment he made up his mind that no one should ever share his guilty secret.
At first, however, all Bentnor could do was to sit about rather helplessly and chatter in an effort to break through Robert's gloom. The second day after he found his brother-in-law, he was at his wits' end to find further subjects for cheerful conversation, until toward evening he had a sudden inspiration!
It was impossible for even a member of the firm of Flagg, Bentnor & Penn to be impressive. Let them call it a nervous breakdown, his lips were forever sealed. Then the thought of his home came to him like distant music.
"Great Scott! who on earth else? the editor?" laughed Bentnor, little dreaming what the few words meant to the distraught man before him. "Perhaps you think I can't do that sort of thing! It's in our blood, the love of the buskin. The fact is, I've always had my suspicions that in the time of Charles the Second well, never mind.
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