your
appearance, perhaps! Why, I wouldn't walk the streets in such a
rig-out!"

Burton listened to his junior's attack unresentingly but with increasing
bewilderment. Then he slipped from his seat and walked hurriedly across
to the looking-glass, which he took down from its nail. He gazed at
himself long and steadily and from every possible angle. It is probable
that for the first time in his life he saw himself then as he really
was. He was plain, of insignificant appearance, he was ill and
tastelessly dressed. He stood there before the sixpenny-ha'penny mirror
and drank the cup of humiliation.

"Calling my tie, indeed!" the office-boy muttered, his smouldering
resentment bringing him back to the attack. "Present from my best girl,
that was, and she knows what's what. Young lady with a place in a
west-end milliner's shop, too. If that doesn't mean good taste, I
should like to know what does. Look at your socks, too, all coming down
over the tops of your boots! Nasty dirty pink and green stripes!
There's another thing about my collar, too," he continued, speaking with
renewed earnestness as he appreciated his senior's stupefaction. "It
was clean yesterday, and that's more than yours was--or the day before!"

Burton shivered as he finally turned away from that looking-glass. The
expression upon his face was indescribable.

"I am sorry I spoke, Clarkson," he apologized humbly. "It certainly
seemed to have slipped my memory that I myself--I can't think how I
managed to make such hideous, unforgivable mistakes."

"While we are upon the subject," his subordinate continued, ruthlessly,
"why don't you give your fingernails a scrub sometimes, eh? You might
give your coat a brush, too, now and then, while you are about it. All
covered with scurf and dust about the shoulders! I'm all for
cleanliness, I am."

Burton made no reply. He was down and his junior kicked him.

"I'd like to see the color of your shirt if you took those paper cuffs
off!" the latter exclaimed. "Why don't you chuck that rotten dickey
away? Cave!"

The door leading into the private office was brusquely opened. Mr.
Waddington, the only existing member of the firm, entered---a large,
untidy-looking man, also dressed in most uncomely fashion, and wearing
an ill-brushed silk hat on the back of his head. He turned at once to
his righthand man.

"Well, did you land him?" he demanded, with some eagerness.

Burton shook his head regretfully.

"It was q