ust feel when they are coupled. This
room had been the bear-garden of the office. Twelve or fourteen
men sat in it. Large pewter pots were brought into it daily at one
o'clock, giving it an air that was not aristocratic. The senior
of the room, one Mr Love, who was presumed to have it under his
immediate dominion, was a clerk of the ancient stamp, dull, heavy,
unambitious, living out on the farther side of Islington, and unknown
beyond the limits of his office to any of his younger brethren.
He was generally regarded as having given a bad tone to the room.
And then the clerks in this room would not unfrequently be blown
up,--with very palpable blowings up,--by an official swell, a certain
chief clerk, named Kissing, much higher in standing though younger in
age than the gentleman of whom we have before spoken. He would hurry
in, out of his own neighbouring chamber, with quick step and nose in
the air, shuffling in his office slippers, looking on each occasion
as though there were some cause to fear that the whole Civil Service
were coming to an abrupt termination, and would lay about him with
hard words, which some of those in the big room did not find it very
easy to bear. His hair was always brushed straight up, his eyes were
always very wide open,--and he usually carried a big letter-book with
him, keeping in it a certain place with his finger. This book was
almost too much for his strength, and he would flop it down, now on
this man's desk and now on that man's, and in along career of such
floppings had made himself to be very much hated. On the score of
some old grudge he and Mr Love did not speak to each other; and for
this reason, on all occasions of fault-finding, the blown-up young
man would refer Mr Kissing to his enemy.

"I know nothing about it," Mr Love would say, not lifting his face
from his desk for a moment.

"I shall certainly lay the matter before the Board," Mr Kissing would
reply, and would then shuffle out of the room with the big book.

Sometimes Mr Kissing would lay the matter before the Board, and then
he, and Mr Love, and two or three delinquent clerks would be summoned
thither. It seldom led to much. The delinquent clerks would be
cautioned. One Commissioner would say a word in private to Mr Love,
and another a word in private to Mr Kissing. Then, when left alone,
the Commissioners would have their little jokes, saying that Kissing,
they feared, went by favour; and that Love should still be