creak. I
heard them in my boyhood. Perched on a tall stool at that old desk, I
used to listen, in the long winter nights, to those strange, wild cries,
till I fancied they were voices of the uneasy dead, come back to take
the vacant seats beside me, and to pace again, with ghostly tread, the
floor of that dark old counting room. They were a mystery and a terror
to me; but they never creaked so harshly, or cried so wildly, as on that
October night, when for the first time in nine years I turned my steps
up the trembling old stairway.

It was just after nightfall. A single gas burner threw a dim, uncertain
light over the old desk, and lit up the figure of a tall, gray-haired
man, who was bending over it. He had round, stooping shoulders, and
long, spindling limbs. One of his large feet, encased in a thick,
square-toed shoe, rested on the round of the desk; the other, planted
squarely on the floor, upheld his spare, gaunt frame. His face was thin
and long, and two deep, black lines under his eyes contrasted strangely
with the pallid whiteness of his features. His clothes were of the
fashion of those good people called 'Friends,' and had served long as
his 'Sunday best' before being degraded to daily duty. They were of
plain brown, and, though not shabby, were worn and threadbare, and of
decidedly economical appearance. Everything about him, indeed, wore an
economical look. His scant coat tails, narrow pants, and short waistcoat
showed that the cost of each inch of material had been counted, while
his thin hair, brushed carefully over his bald head, had not a lock to
spare; and even his large, sharp bones were covered with only just
enough flesh to hold them comfortably together. He had stood there till
his eye was dim and his step feeble, and though he had, for twenty
years--when handing in each semiannual trial balance to the head of the
house--declared that was his last, everybody said he would continue to
stand there till his own trial balance was struck, and his earthly
accounts were closed forever.

As I entered, he turned his mild blue eye upon me, and, taking my hand
warmly in his, exclaimed:

'My dear boy, I am glad to see thee!'

'I am glad to see _you_, David. Is Alice well?'

'Very well. And Kate, and thy babies?'

'All well,' I replied.

'Thee has come to see John?'

'Yes. How is he?'

'Oh, better; he got out several days ago. He's inside now,' and opening
the door of an inner office, separated fro