LAPHAM was gone a fortnight. He was in a sullen humour
when he came back, and kept himself shut close within
his own den at the office the first day. He entered it
in the morning without a word to his clerks as he passed
through the outer room, and he made no sign throughout
the forenoon, except to strike savagely on his desk-bell
from time to time, and send out to Walker for some book
of accounts or a letter-file. His boy confidentially
reported to Walker that the old man seemed to have got
a lot of papers round; and at lunch the book-keeper
said to Corey, at the little table which they had taken
in a corner together, in default of seats at the counter,
"Well, sir, I guess there's a cold wave coming."
Corey looked up innocently, and said, "I haven't read
the weather report."
"Yes, sir," Walker continued, "it's coming. Areas of
rain along the whole coast, and increased pressure
in the region of the private office. Storm-signals up
at the old man's door now."
Corey perceived that he was speaking figuratively,
and that his meteorology was entirely personal to Lapham.
"What do you mean?" he asked, without vivid interest in
the allegory, his mind being full of his own tragi-comedy.
"Why, just this: I guess the old man's takin' in sail.
And I guess he's got to. As I told you the first time
we talked about him, there don't any one know one-
quarter as much about the old man's business as the old
man does himself; and I ain't betraying any confidence
when I say that I guess that old partner of his has got
pretty deep into his books.
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