My first business, as Secretary, was the drawing out of a model card of admission to the ball.
My next occupation was to look at the rooms provided for me.
The Duskydale Institution occupied a badly-repaired ten-roomed house, with a great flimsy saloon built at one side of it, smelling of paint and damp plaster, and called the Lecture Theater.

It was the chilliest, ugliest, emptiest, gloomiest place I ever entered in my life; the idea of doing anything but sitting down and crying in it seemed to me quite preposterous; but the committee took a different view of the matter, and praised the Lecture Theater as a perfect ballroom.

The Secretary's apartments were two garrets, asserting themselves in the most barefaced manner, without an attempt at disguise.

If I had intended to do more than earn my first quarter's salary, I should have complained.

But as I had not the slightest intention of remaining at Duskydale, I could afford to establish a reputation for amiability by saying nothing.
"Have you seen Mr.Softly, the new Secretary?
A most distinguished person, and quite an acquisition to the neighborhood." Such was the popular opinion of me among the young ladies and the liberal inhabitants.