e muddy river among the colliers,
rendering light things indistinct, black things blacker, dark places
darker, and affording such an opportunity for unrestrained enjoyment to
the rats, that these creatures held an absolute carnival everywhere.

About this period of the day Mr Denham rose, put on his hat and
greatcoat, and prepared to go. Peekins observed this through a private
scratch in the glass door, and signalised the gladsome news in dumb-show
to his comrades. Hope at once took the place of despair in the office,
for lads and very young men are happily furnished with extremely elastic
spirits. The impulse of joy caused by the prospect of Denham's
departure was so strong in the breast of one youth, with red hair, a red
nose, red cheeks, large red lips, blue eyes, and red hands (Ruggles by
name), that he incontinently seized a sheet of blotting-paper, crumpled
it into a ball, and flung it at the head of the youngest clerk, a dark
little boy, who sat opposite to him on a tall stool, and who, being a
new boy, was copying letters painfully but diligently with a heavy
heart.

The missile was well aimed. It hit the new boy exactly on the point of
the nose, causing him to start and prolong the tail of a y an inch and a
quarter beyond its natural limits.

This little incident would not have been worth mentioning but for the
fact that it was the hinge, so to speak, on which incidents of a more
important nature turned. Mr Denham happened to open his door just as
the missile was discharged and saw the result, though not the thrower.
He had no difficulty, however, in discovering the offender; for each of
the other clerks looked at their comrade in virtuous horror, as though
to say, "Oh! how could you?--please, sir, it wasn't _me_, it was _him_;"
while Ruggles applied himself to his work with an air of abstraction and
a face of scarlet that said plainly, "It's of no use staring in that
fashion at me, for I'm as innocent as the unborn babe."

Denham frowned portentously, and that peculiarly dead calm which usually
precedes the bursting of a storm prevailed in the office. Before the
storm burst, however, the outer door was opened hastily and our friend
Bax stood in the room. He was somewhat dishevelled in appearance, as if
he had travelled fast. To the clerks in that small office he appeared
more fierce and gigantic than usual. Peekins regarded him with
undisguised admiration, and wondered in his heart if Jack the
Gia