the presence of other qualities besides that of
good-humour. He was book-keeper and accountant, and managed the affairs
entrusted to his care with the same dogged perseverance with which he
would have led an expedition of discovery to the North Pole. He was
thirty or thereabouts.

The second was a small man--also a Scotchman. It is curious to note how
numerous Scotchmen are in the wilds of North America. This specimen was
diminutive and sharp. Moreover, he played the flute--an accomplishment
of which he was so proud that he ordered out from England a flute of
ebony, so elaborately enriched with silver keys that one's fingers ached
to behold it. This beautiful instrument, like most other instruments of
a delicate nature, found the climate too much for its constitution, and,
soon after the winter began, split from top to bottom. Peter Mactavish,
however, was a genius by nature, and a mechanical genius by tendency; so
that, instead of giving way to despair, he laboriously bound the flute
together with waxed thread, which, although it could not restore it to
its pristine elegance, enabled him to play with great effect sundry
doleful airs, whose influence, when performed at night, usually sent his
companions to sleep, or, failing this, drove them to distraction.

The third inhabitant of the office was a ruddy, smooth-chinned youth of
about fourteen, who had left home seven months before, in the hope of
gratifying a desire to lead a wild life, which he had entertained ever
since he read "Jack the Giant Killer," and found himself most
unexpectedly fastened, during the greater part of each day, to a stool.
His name was Harry Somerville, and a fine, cheerful little fellow he
was, full of spirits, and curiously addicted to poking and arranging the
fire at least every ten minutes--a propensity which tested the
forbearance of the senior clerk rather severely, and would have
surprised any one not aware of poor Harry's incurable antipathy to the
desk, and the yearning desire with which he longed for physical action.

Harry was busily engaged with the refractory fire when Charley, as
stated at the conclusion of the last chapter, burst into the room.

"Hollo!" he exclaimed, suspending his operations for a moment, "what's
up?"

"Nothing," said Charley, "but father's temper, that's all. He gave me a
splendid description of his life in the woods, and then threw his pipe
at me because I admired it too much."

"Ho!" exclaimed