it was on indifferent subjects, not
referring to the last. The Doctor's heat, as it usually did, boiled
out in spasms on trifles. Once he stumped his toe, and, I am sorry to
say, swore roundly about it, just as he would have done in the new
Arcadia, if one of the jail-birds comprising that colony had been
ungrateful for his advantages. Philanthropists, for some curious
reason, are not the most amiable members of small families.

He gave Holmes the roll of parchment he had in his pocket, looking
keenly at him, as he did so, but only saying, that, if he meant to sign
it, it would be done to-morrow. As Holmes took it, they stopped at the
great door of the factory. He went in alone, Knowles going down the
street. One trifle, strange in its way, he remembered afterwards.
Holding the roll of paper in his hand that would make the mill his, he
went, in his slow, grave way, down the long passage to the loom-rooms.
There was a crowd of porters and firemen there, as usual, and he
thought one of them hastily passed him in the dark passage, hiding
behind an engine. As the shadow fell on him, his teeth chattered with a
chilly shudder. He smiled, thinking how superstitious people would say
that some one trod on his grave just then, or that Death looked at him,
and went on. Afterwards he thought of it. Going through the office,
the fat old book-keeper, Huff, stopped him with a story he had been
keeping for him all day. He liked to tell a story to Holmes; he could
see into a joke; it did a man good to hear a fellow laugh like that.
Holmes did laugh, for the story was a good one, and stood a moment,
then went in, leaving the old fellow chuckling over his desk. Huff did
not know how, lately, after every laugh, this man felt a vague scorn of
himself, as if jokes and laughter belonged to a self that ought to have
been dead long ago. Perhaps, if the fat old book-keeper had known it,
he would have said that the man was better than he knew. But
then,--poor Huff! He passed slowly through the alleys between the
great looms. Overhead the ceiling looked like a heavy maze of iron
cylinders and black swinging bars and wheels, all in swift, ponderous
motion. It was enough to make a brain dizzy with the clanging thunder
of the engines, the whizzing spindles of red and yellow, and the hot
daylight glaring over all. The looms were watched by women, most of
them bold, tawdry girls of fifteen or sixteen, or lean-jawed women from
the hills