t me?" roared Meeson. "Look here No. 7,
you and I had better part. Now, no words: your salary will be paid to
you till the end of the month, and if you would like to bring an
action for wrongful dismissal, why, I'm your man. Good morning, No. 7;
good morning."

Next he crossed a courtyard where, by slipping stealthily around the
corner, he came upon a jolly little errand boy, who was enjoying a
solitary game of marbles.

_Whack_ came his cane across the seat of that errand boy's trousers,
and in another minute he had followed the editor and the
sandwich-devouring clerk.

And so the merry game went on for half an hour or more, till at last Mr.
Meeson was fain to cease his troubling, being too exhausted to continue
his destroying course. But next morning there was promotion going on in
the great publishing house; eleven vacancies had to be filled.

A couple of glasses of brown sherry and a few sandwiches, which he
hastily swallowed at a neighboring restaurant, quickly restored him,
however; and, jumping into a cab, he drove post haste to his lawyers',
Messrs. Todd and James.

"Is Mr. Todd in?" he said to the managing clerk, who came forward bowing
obsequiously to the richest man in Birmingham.

"Mr. Todd will be disengaged in a few minutes, Sir," he said. "May I
offer you the _Times_?"

"Damn the _Times_!" was the polite answer; "I don't come here to read
newspapers. Tell Mr. Todd I must see him at once, or else I shall go
elsewhere."

"I am much afraid Sir"--began the managing clerk.

Mr. Meeson jumped up and grabbed his hat. "Now then, which is it to
be?" he said.

"Oh, certainly, Sir; pray be seated," answered the manager in great
alarm--Meeson's business was not a thing to be lightly lost. "I will see
Mr. Todd instantly," and he vanished.

Almost simultaneously with his departure an old lady was unceremoniously
bundled out of an inner room, clutching feebly at a reticule full of
papers and proclaiming loudly that her head was going round and round.
The poor old soul was just altering her will for the eighteenth time in
favor of a brand new charity, highly recommended by Royalty; and to be
suddenly shot from the revered presence of her lawyer out into the outer
darkness of the clerk's office, was really too much for her.

In another minute, Mr. Meeson was being warmly, even enthusiastically,
greeted by Mr. Todd himself. Mr. Todd was a nervous-looking, jumpy little
man, who spoke in jerks and gushes in s