fragments of apparatus. For a moment he peered at it; then he tossed
it back again, and yawned a second time.

"Business!" he growled. "'Swapped my reputation for a song,' eh?
Where's my commission, now?"

He got up, clasped his hands behind him, and walked a few times up and
down the heavy rug, his footfalls silent.

"The business could have gone on without me!" he added, bitterly.
"And, after all, what's any business, compared to _life_?"

He yawned again, stretched up his arms, groaned and laughed with
mockery:

"A little more money, maybe, when I don't know what to do with what
I've got already! A few more figures on a checkbook--and the heart
dying in me!"

Then he relapsed into silence. Head down, hands thrust deep in
pockets, he paced like a captured animal in bars. The bitterness
of his spirit was wormwood. What meant, to him, the interests and
pleasures of other men? Profit and loss, alcohol, tobacco, women--all
alike bore him no message. Clubs, athletics, gambling--he grumbled
something savage as his thoughts turned to such trivialities. And into
his aquiline face came something the look of an eagle, trapped, there
in that eagle's nest of his.

Suddenly the Master of _Niss'rosh_ came to a decision. He returned,
clapped his hands thrice, sharply, and waited. Almost at once a door