atter the moss that I sit here to help
accumulate."

"What a lucky dog you are," said he, "to escape so easily from the
snares and temptations of this wicked world. While I am tormented with
ennui, blue-devils and dyspepsia, you sit still and grow in stature and
knowledge. By Jove! you are too big to wear my cast-off suits now. My
valet will bless the increase of your outward man, and I don't think
you have at all profited by the circumstance. Where the deuce did you
get that eccentric turn-out? It certainly does not remind one of Bond
Street."

"Mr. Theophilus!" I cried, reddening with indignation. "Did you come
here on purpose to insult me?"

"Sit still, now, like a good lad, and don't fly into heroics and give
us a scene. I am too lazy to pick a quarrel with you. What a confounded
wet morning! It has disarranged all my plans. I ordered the groom to
bring up my mare at eleven. The rain commenced at ten. I think it means
to keep on at this rate all day."

He cast a peevish glance at the dusty ground-glass windows.

"There's no catching a glimpse of heaven through these dim panes. My
father's clerks are not called upon to resist the temptation of looking
into the streets."

"They might not inappropriately be called the pains and penalties of
lawyer's clerks," said I, smothering my anger, as I saw by the motion
of Harrison's head, that he was suffering from an agony of suppressed
laughter.

"Not a bad idea that. The plan of grinding the glass was suggested by
me. An ingenious one, is it not? My father had the good sense to adopt
it. It's a pity that his example is not followed by all the lawyers and
merchants in London."

In spite of the spattering of Harrison's pen, which told me as plainly
as words could have done, that he was highly amused at the scene, I
felt irritated at Theophilus joking about a circumstance which, to me,
was a great privation and annoyance.

"If _you_ had a seat in this office, Mr. Theophilus," said I, laying a
strong stress upon the personal pronoun, "you would, I am certain, take
good care to keep a peep-hole, well-glazed, for your own convenience."

"If I were in the office," he replied, with one of his sidelong,
satirical glances, "I should have too much to do in keeping the clerks
at work and in their places, to have much time for looking out of the
window. My father would do well to hire an overseer for _idle_ hands."

Harrison's tremulous fit increased, while I was burning wit