own ideas of happiness had been consulted I should
have been here an hour ago. Ah, Roden, how are you? Though I know you
live in the same street, I didn't think of meeting you." Roden gave
him a nod, but did not vouchsafe him a word. "How's his lordship? I
told you, didn't I, that I had heard from him the other day?" Crocker
had mentioned more than once at his office the fact that he had
received a letter from Lord Hampstead.

"I don't often see him, and very rarely hear from him," said Roden,
without turning away from Marion to whom he was at the moment
speaking.

"If all our young noblemen were like Hampstead," said Crocker, who
had told the truth in declaring that he had been dining, "England
would be a very different sort of place from what it is. The most
affable young lord that ever sat in the House of Peers." Then he
turned himself towards Marion Fay, at whose identity he made a guess.
He was anxious at once to claim her as a mutual friend, as connected
with himself by her connection with the lord in question. But as
he could find no immediate excuse for introducing himself, he only
winked at her.

"Are you acquainted with Mr. Tribbledale, Mr. Crocker?" asked Clara.

"Never had the pleasure as yet," said Crocker. Then the introduction
was effected. "In the Civil Service?" asked Crocker. Tribbledale
blushed, and of necessity repudiated the honour. "I thought, perhaps,
you were in the Customs. You have something of the H.M.S. cut about
you." Tribbledale acknowledged the compliment with a bow. "I think
the Service is the best thing a man can do with himself," continued
Crocker.

"It is genteel," said Mrs. Duffer.

"And the hours so pleasant," said Clara. "Bank clerks have always to
be there by nine."

"Is a young man to be afraid of that?" asked the Quaker, indignantly.
"Ten till four, with one hour for the newspapers and another for
lunch. See the consequence. I never knew a young man yet from a
public office who understood the meaning of a day's work."

"I think that is a little hard," said Roden. "If a man really works,
six hours continuously is as much as he can do with any good to his
employers or himself."

"Well done, Roden," said Crocker. "Stick up for Her Majesty's shop."
Roden turned himself more round than before, and continued to address
himself to Marion.

"Our employers wouldn't think much of us," said the Quaker, "if we
didn't do better for them than that in private offices. I say that