The older clerk takes not the least heed.

He writes steadily on, and never lifts his head from the paper--long hours of labour have dimmed his sight, and he has to stoop close over the folio.

He may be preparing a brief, he may be copying a deposition, or perhaps making a copy of a deed; but whatever it is, his whole mind is absorbed and concentrated on his pen.

There must be no blot, no erasure, no interlineation.

The hand of the clock moves slowly, and the half-heard talk and jests of the junior clerks--one of whom you suspect of making a pen-and-ink sketch of you--mingle with the ceaseless scrape of the senior's pen, and the low buzz of two black flies that circle for ever round and round just beneath the grimy ceiling.