ral departure.

So, hastily adjusting the third chapter to his waistcoat and donning the
balance of his garments, he fitted his hat to his head with thoughtful
caution and hurried to the bustling thoroughfare.

Preoccupied by his gradually lessening disabilities, Dennis did not
remark that the course pursued by him had the house of the publisher as
its terminus, until he stood directly before that august establishment.

As the young Irishman recognized his surroundings, it did not take him
long to persuade himself, with native superstition, as he considered the
unaware nature of his arrival, that Providence had directed his
footsteps thither, and, with the species of courage that can come from
such a basis, he proceeded to the rearway, where he beheld the Celt in
whom his hopes were centered, berating the porters, with a mien which
offered anything but encouragement to the anxious young man.

However, he came forward tentatively, and found himself, presently, so
much within the radius of the foreman's range of vision as to be
compelled to accept, with enforced urbanity, the vituperation of the
draymen, who objected to the amount of landscape he occupied with his
bulk and eager personality.

At last, when the foreman had bullied his lusty understudies into a
certain degree of sullen system, and the drays began to move away with
their mysterious burdens, Dennis ventured to address him.

Greatly to his relief, the perturbed countenance of the latter softened
perceptibly as he exclaimed:

"Ah, ha! an' it's there ye are?"

"Yes," replied Dennis with solicitous abnegation.

"Well," returned the other, "roll up yer sleeves; yer job's a-waitin'
fur ye."

With an agility that betrayed the diplomacy of his countenance into
ingenuous exultation, Dennis followed the foreman into the warehouse,
and the latter at once began his instructions as to the system of
marking, and Dennis mastered its simple mysteries with a quickness that
was not only flattering to the discernment of his instructor but an
indorsement of Celtic adjustability in general.

In the course of the morning Dennis discovered that his predecessor had
put him under obligations by prolonging his debauch, and that his
arrival upon the scene had been most opportune in consequence.

He was now assured of a position, whose only handicap was the prospect,
delicately insinuated by the foreman for his consideration, of the
possible state of mind of the previous i