eded in persuading other businesses,
more directly fed from the human spring, of its obliging usefulness in
relieving them of detachable burdens. In fact, it had no activity or
interest of its own to account for, so it proposed, in default of any
such original reason for existence, to look after the accounts of
others, as a self-constituted body of financial police. For those
engaged in it, except those who had been born mentally deformed, or
those who had become unnaturally perverted by long usage, it was a sort
of penitentiary of the mathematics.

CHAPTER X

THE GRASS BETWEEN THE FLAG-STONES

Yes, it was a curiously unreal world; and, for the first day or two, as
Henry, bent, lonely and bewildered, over his desk, studied it furtively
with questioning eyes, it seemed to him as though he had strayed into
some asylum for the insane, where fantastic interests and mock honours
take the place of the real interests and honours of sane human beings.

Part of the business of the firm consisted in the collection of
house-rents, frequently entailing visits from tenants and questions of
repairs. A certain Mr. Smith, a wiry little grey-headed man, with a keen
face and a decisive manner, looked after this branch; and the gusto with
which he did it was one of Henry's earliest and most instructive
amazements. House-repairs were quite evidently his poetry, and he never
seemed so happy as when passionately wrangling with a tenant on some
question of drains. The words "cesspool" and "wet-trap"--words to which
I don't pretend to attach any meaning--seemed to be particular
favourites of his. In fact, an hour seldom passed without their falling
from his lips. But Mr. Smith's great opportunity was a gale. For that
always meant an exciting harvest of dislodged chimney-pots, flying
slates, and smashed skylights, which would impart an energetic interest
to his life for days.

Again, in Henry's department--for the office was cut into two halves,
with about ten clerks in each, the partners having, of course, their own
private offices, from which they might dart out at any moment--there was
a certain little fussy chief clerk who was obviously a person of very
mysterious importance. He was frequently away, evidently on missions of
great moment, for always on his return he would be closeted immediately
with one or other of the partners, who in turn seemed to consider him
important too, and would sometimes treat him almost like one of