stool facing his desk
bespoke neither political influence nor the backing of rich friends.
Nobody, really, had ever wanted his place. If they did they never dared
ask for it--not above their breath. They would as soon have thought of
ousting the old clock from its perch in the rotunda, or moving one of
the great columns that faced the street. So he just stayed on ticking
away at his post, quite like the old clock itself, and getting stiffer
and stiffer in the line of his duty--quite like the columns--and
getting more and more covered with the dust of long habit--quite like
both of them.

This dust, being outside dust, and never sinking the thousandth part of
an inch below the surface, left its mark on the man beneath as a live
coal fading and whitening leaves its covering of ashes on the spark.

These two--the ashes and the spark--made up the sum of Peter's
individuality. The ash part was what he offered to the world of
routine--the world he hated. The spark part--cheery, warm,
enthusiastic, full of dreams, of imaginings, with an absorbing love for
little bits of beauty, such as old Satsuma, Cloisonne, quaint
miniatures and the like--all good, and yet within reach of his
purse--this part he gave to his friends.

I am inside his room now, standing behind him taking in the glow of the
fire and the red damask curtains shielding the door that leads to his
bedroom; my eye roving over the bookcases crammed with books, the
tables littered with curios and the mantel covered with miniatures and
ivories. I invariably do this to discover his newest "find" before he
calls my attention to it. As he has not yet moved or given me any other
sign of recognition than a gruff "Draw up a chair," in a voice that
does not sound a bit like him--his eyes all the time on the smouldering
fire, there is yet a chance to look him over before he begins to talk.
(We shall all be busy enough listening when he does begin.)

I say "ALL," for there is a second visitor close behind me, and the
sound of still another footstep can already be heard in the hall below.

It is the back of Peter's head now that interests me, and the droop of
his shoulders. They always remind me of Leech's sketch of Old Scrooge
waiting for Marly's ghost, whenever I come upon him thus unobserved.
To-night he not only wears his calico dressing-gown--unheard-of garment
in these days--but a red velvet cap pulled over his scalp. Most bald
men would have the cap black--but then mo