d of you to come--most
thoughtful."

This young gentleman came into my room to learn the state of the case,
and was much impressed.

"Really this kind of thing--Perkins gasping in bed and talking in his
old-fashioned way--knocks one out of time, don't you know? If he had
gone on much longer I should have bolted.

"Like him in the office? I should think so. You should have seen the
young fellows to-day when they heard he was so ill. Of course we laugh
a bit at him--Schedule Perkins he's called--because he's so dry and
formal; but that's nothing.

"With all his little cranks, he knows his business better than any man
in the department; and then he's a gentleman, d'y see? could not say
a rude word or do a mean thing to save his life--not made that way, in
fact.

"Let me just give you one instance--show you his sort. Every one knew
that he ought to have been chief clerk, and that Rodway's appointment
was sheer influence. The staff was mad, and some one said Rodway need
not expect to have a particularly good time.

"Perkins overheard him, and chipped in at once. 'Mr. Rodway'--you know
his dry manner, wagging his eyeglass all the time--'is our superior
officer, and we are bound to render him every assistance in our power,
or,' and then he was splendid, 'resign our commissions.' Rodway, they
say, has retired, but the worst of it is that as Perkins has been once
passed over he'll not succeed.

"Perhaps it won't matter, poor chap. I say," said Lighthead,
hurriedly, turning his back and examining a pipe on the mantelpiece,
"do you think he is going to--I mean, has he a chance?"

"Just a chance, I believe. Have you been long with him?"

"That's not it--it's what he's done for a--for fellows. Strangers
don't know Perkins. You might talk to him for a year, and never hear
anything but shop. Then one day you get into a hole, and you would
find out another Perkins.

"Stand by you?" and he wheeled round. "Rather, and no palaver either;
with money and with time and with--other things, that do a fellow more
good than the whole concern, and no airs. There's more than one man in
our office has cause to--bless Schedule Perkins.

"Let me tell you how he got--one chap out of the biggest scrape he'll
ever fall into. Do you mind me smoking?" And then he made himself busy
with matches and a pipe that was ever going out for the rest of the
story.

"Well, you see, this man, clerk in our office, had not been long up
from the country