There were two or three small rooms where members smoked or played cards or read the newspapers, and in the quietest of these John Turner was alone, asleep.

Colville walked backward into the room, talking loudly as he did so with a friend in the passage.

When well over the threshold he turned: John Turner, whose slumbers had been rudely disturbed, was sitting up rubbing his eyes.

The surprise was of course mutual, and for a moment there was an awkward pause; then, with a smile of frank good-fellowship, Colville advanced, holding out his hand.
"I hope we have known each other too many years, old fellow," he said, "to bear any lasting ill-will for words spoken in the heat of anger or disappointment, eh ?" He stood in front of the banker frankly holding out the hand of forgiveness, his head a little on one side, that melancholy smile of toleration for poor human weakness in his eyes.
"Well," admitted Turner, "we've certainly known each other a good many years." He somewhat laboriously hoisted himself up, his head emerging from his tumbled collar like the head of a tortoise aroused from sleep, and gave into Colville's affectionate grasp a limp and nerveless hand.
"No one could feel for you more sincerely than I do," Colville assured him, drawing forward a chair,--"more than I have done all through these trying months." "Very kind, I'm sure," murmured Turner, looking drowsily at his friend's necktie.

One must look somewhere, and Turner always gazed at the necktie of any one who sat straight in front of him, which usually induced an uneasy fingering of that ornament and an early consultation of the nearest mirror.