neatness; who would look after the accounts of "the Rev. Thomas
Salthouse," or take charge of "Ex'ors James Shuttleworth, Esqre"?

Of course, it was absurd--absurd, perhaps, just because it was human.
For was he not going to be free, free to fulfil his dreams, free to
follow those voices that had so often called him from beyond the sunset?
Soon he would be able to cry out to them, with literal truth, "I am
yours, yours--all yours!" And in those ten years which were to pass so
invariably for Mr. Smith, and for Jenkins and the rest, what various and
dazzling changes might be, must be, in store for him. Long before the
end of them he must have written masterpieces and become famous, and
Angel and he be long settled together in their paradise of home.

Henry was pleased to find that his chums were to miss him no less than
he was to miss them. As an unofficial master of their pale revels, his
place would not be easy to fill; and he was much touched, when, a day or
two before the end of the month, which was the time mutually agreed upon
for Henry to look round, they intimated their desire to give a little
dinner in his honour at "The Jovial Clerks" tavern.

Henry was nothing loth, and the evening came and went with no little
emotion and no little wine, on either side. He had bidden good-bye to
his employers in the afternoon, and Mr. Lingard had shaken his hand, and
admonished him as to his future with something of paternal affection.

Toward the close of the dinner, Bob Cherry, who acted as chairman, rose,
with an unaccustomed blush upon his cheek, to propose the toast of the
evening. They had had the honour and pleasure, he said, to be associated
for several years past with a gentleman to whom that evening they were
to say good-bye. No better fellow had ever graced the offices of Lingard
and Fields, and his would be a real loss to the gaiety of their little
world. They understood that he was a poet; and indeed had he not already
published a charming volume with which they were all acquainted!--still
this made no difference to them. Certain high powers might object, but
they liked him none the less; and whether he was a poet or not, he was
certainly a jolly good fellow, and wherever his new career might take
him, the good wishes of his old chums would certainly follow him. The
chairman concluded his speech by requesting his acceptance of a copy of
the "Works of Lord Macaulay," as a small remembrance of the days they
had sp