Some weeks after John's assumption of his duties in the office of David Harum, Banker, that gentleman sat reading his New York paper in the "wing settin'-room," after tea, and Aunt Polly was occupied with the hemming of a towel.

The able editorial which David was perusing was strengthening his conviction that all the intelligence and virtue of the country were monopolized by the Republican party, when his meditations were broken in upon by Mrs.Bixbee, who knew nothing and cared less about the Force Bill or the doctrine of protection to American industries.
"You hain't said nothin' fer quite a while about the bank," she remarked.

"Is Mr.Lenox gittin' along all right ?" "Guess he's gittin' into condition as fast as c'd be expected," said David, between two lines of his editorial.
"It must be awful lonesome fer him," she observed, to which there was no reply.
"Ain't it ?" she asked, after an interval.
"Ain't what ?" said David, looking up at her.
"Awful lonesome," she reiterated.
"Guess nobody ain't ever very lonesome when you're 'round an' got your breath," was the reply.

"What you talkin' about ?" "I ain't talkin' about you, 't any rate," said Mrs.Bixbee.

"I was sayin' it must be awful lonesome fer Mr.Lenox up here where he don't know a soul hardly, an' livin' at that hole of a tavern." "I don't see 't you've any cause to complain long's he don't," said David, hoping that it would not come to his sister's ears that he had, for reasons of his own, discouraged any attempt on John's part to better his quarters, "an' he hain't ben very lonesome daytimes, I guess, so fur, 'thout he's ben makin' work fer himself to kill time." "What do you mean ?" "Wa'al," said David, "we found that Chet hadn't done more 'n to give matters a lick an' a promise in most a year.