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the clock yet who organized the sports on the firm outing? All the vectors on the partnership graph laid out now on the blotter of his desk pointed to what should occur that Christmas: the happy exclusion of Jake from the long list of those running up to Clitus Tilney’s office to be told of their mere annual raises, the breathless hiatus, the final summoning, the twinkle, the hand on the shoulder, the hand in Jake’s hand, the explanation, with a gruff chuckle, of why there would be no further talk of raises. And Barry Schlide would get all that? Barry Schlide would take his place and feel the pressure of that near-paternal grip under the puffy shoulder pads of his vulgarly cut coat? Jake was so upset that he did not pick up his telephone until the third ring.
    â€œOh, Jake,” came his master’s voice, “this merger of Standard Trust with Bank of Commerce, if it ever comes off, is going to have tax headaches, along with everything else. I think we’d better have a first-class tax man at the meeting on Thursday. Have you anyone to suggest?”
    â€œWhat about Schlide?”
    â€œSchlide?” There was a faint note of surprise in Tilney’s high, smooth tone. “Oh, all right, Schlide. See if you can get him.”
    â€œI’ll get him all right.”
    â€œGood. And Jake?”
    â€œYes, sir?” He found it perfectly consistent to use this title of address alternately with “Clitus.” So, evidently, did Tilney.
    â€œMy spies tell me you’ve been overdoing it. Down here every night last week. I want you to get some rest before the merger talks and go home to that lovely wife of yours. Promise?”
    I promise, sir.
    Â 
    Jake’s plan of pushing Barry into the face of the senior partner, for whom he had never directly worked, so that Tilney would see him in all his horribleness and not accept, secondhand, the opinion of the easily flattered tax chief, Mr. Madison, had been conceived in a split second, but looking around the conference in Tilney’s office on Thursday morning he felt that he had no reason to regret it. Tilney, so smooth and big in the dark blue, almost black suit that fell, creaseless, from his broad shoulders to his thin ankles, so formidably cerebral with his wide brow, his long, wide-nostriled nose and the rimless pince-nez clamped to its tiny bridge, so authoritative with his thunderous coughs and habit of slapping a broad silver paper cutter on the blotter of his desk, loomed over the group of silent associates like an old bull among yearlings. It was as simple to see that he had grown out of one of them as that they, or at least some of them, would grow into him. But could anything ever come out of, or come
of,
Barry Schlide? Could anyone fail to note his discrepancy in that chamber: the too light suit, the white tie with blue triangles, the red beaming face that, instead of being bent, like the others, over the printed proofs, was motionlessly erect so that the big drippy eyes could contemplate with rapture the profile of the senior partner?
    â€œThese bank mergers, gentlemen, always bristle with problems,” Tilney was beginning. “And not the least of them, to us anyway, is which bank’s counsel is going to end up representing the merged banks. The Standard Trust boys may be in there rooting for us, but you can be sure Bank of Commerce is rooting just as hard for Mason, Winthrop & Sears. That’s why we must be on our toes. Now here’s a draft letter that Mr. Madison has banged out on the tax features of the merger. It looks pretty good to me, Barry, but I want you to check it out and then clear it with Mr. Sears.”
    With a flick of his wrist he sent a long sheet of paper sliding down the glazed surface of the conference table to Barry who picked it up gingerly and held it before him as tenderly as if he were viewing a rare old scroll.
    â€œAll I can say,” he said after a pause, with a twinkle in his