I have been all my life a clerk--like so many thousands of other men.

Nowadays, if I happen to be in the City when all the clerks are coming away from business, I feel an inexpressible pity for them.

I feel I should like to find two or three of the hardest driven, and just divide my superfluous income between.

A clerk's life--a life of the office without any hope of rising--that is a hideous fate!' 'But your brother got on well.

Why didn't he help you ?' 'We couldn't agree.