st three
words began with the same letter. The chief clerk began to hurry Miss
Parker, saying she would never have the letters typed in time for post.
The man listened to the clicking of the machine for a few minutes and
then set to work to finish his copy. But his head was not clear and his
mind wandered away to the glare and rattle of the public-house. It was a
night for hot punches. He struggled on with his copy, but when the clock
struck five he had still fourteen pages to write. Blast it! He couldn't
finish it in time. He longed to execrate aloud, to bring his fist down
on something violently. He was so enraged that he wrote Bernard Bernard
instead of Bernard Bodley and had to begin again on a clean sheet.

He felt strong enough to clear out the whole office singlehanded. His
body ached to do something, to rush out and revel in violence. All
the indignities of his life enraged him.... Could he ask the cashier
privately for an advance? No, the cashier was no good, no damn good:
he wouldn't give an advance.... He knew where he would meet the boys:
Leonard and O'Halloran and Nosey Flynn. The barometer of his emotional
nature was set for a spell of riot.

His imagination had so abstracted him that his name was called twice
before he answered. Mr. Alleyne and Miss Delacour were standing outside
the counter and all the clerks had turn round in anticipation of
something. The man got up from his desk. Mr. Alleyne began a tirade of
abuse, saying that two letters were missing. The man answered that he
knew nothing about them, that he had made a faithful copy. The tirade
continued: it was so bitter and violent that the man could hardly
restrain his fist from descending upon the head of the manikin before
him:

"I know nothing about any other two letters," he said stupidly.

"You--know--nothing. Of course you know nothing," said Mr. Alleyne.
"Tell me," he added, glancing first for approval to the lady beside him,
"do you take me for a fool? Do you think me an utter fool?"

The man glanced from the lady's face to the little egg-shaped head and
back again; and, almost before he was aware of it, his tongue had found
a felicitous moment:

"I don't think, sir," he said, "that that's a fair question to put to
me."

There was a pause in the very breathing of the clerks. Everyone was
astounded (the author of the witticism no less than his neighbours) and
Miss Delacour, who was a stout amiable person, began to smile broadly.
M