He liked to tell a story to Holmes; he could see into a joke; it did a man good to hear a fellow laugh like that.
Holmes did laugh, for the story was a good one, and stood a moment, then went in, leaving the old fellow chuckling over his desk.

Huff did not know how, lately, after every laugh, this man felt a vague scorn of himself, as if jokes and laughter belonged to a self that ought to have been dead long ago.

Perhaps, if the fat old book-keeper had known it, he would have said that the man was better than he knew.

But then,--poor Huff! He passed slowly through the alleys between the great looms.

Overhead the ceiling looked like a heavy maze of iron cylinders and black swinging bars and wheels, all in swift, ponderous motion.