A Cheapside tailor had cut it, and, had it been black or gray or
snuff-coloured instead of white, its wearer might have passed all the
way from the Docks to Temple Bar for a solid merchant on 'Change--a
self-respecting man, too, careless of dress for appearance' sake, but
careful of it for his own, and as part of a habit of neatness.
He wore no wig (though the date was 1723), but his own gray hair,
brushed smoothly back from a sufficiently handsome forehead and tied
behind with a fresh black ribbon. In his right hand he held a straw
hat, broad-brimmed like a Quaker's, and a white umbrella with a green
lining. His left fingered his clean-shaven chin as he gazed on the
river.

The ceremonies of leave-taking were done with and dismissed; so far
as he could, he had avoided them. He had ever been a hard man and
knew well enough that the clerks disliked him. He hated humbug.
He had come to India, almost forty years ago, not to make friends,
but to make a fortune. And now the fortune was made, and the room
behind him stood ready, spick and span, for the Scotsman who would
take his chair to-morrow. Drawers had been emptied and dusted, loose
papers and memoranda sorted and either burnt or arranged and
docketed, ledgers entered up to the last item in his firm
handwriting, and finally closed. The history of his manhood lay shut
between their covers, written in figures terser than a Roman classic:
his grand _coup_ in Nunsasee goods, Abdul Guffere's debt commuted for
500,000 rupees, the salvage of the _Ramillies_ wreck, his commercial
duel with Viltul Parrak . . . And the record had no loose ends.
He owed no man a farthing.

The door behind him opened softly and a small gray-headed man peered
into the room.