HOW THE HAPPY DIAMOND-WEARER DINES AT PENTONVILLE I did not go to the office till half-an-hour after opening time on Monday.

If the truth must be told, I was not sorry to let Hoskins have the start of me, and tell the chaps what had taken place,--for we all have our little vanities, and I liked to be thought well of by my companions.
When I came in, I saw my business had been done, by the way in which the chaps looked at me; especially Abednego, who offered me a pinch out of his gold snuff-box the very first thing.

Roundhand shook me, too, warmly by the hand, when he came round to look over my day-book, said I wrote a capital hand (and indeed I believe I do, without any sort of flattery), and invited me for dinner next Sunday, in Myddelton Square.

"You won't have," said he, "quite such a grand turn-out as with _your friends at the West End_"-- he said this with a particular accent--"but Amelia and I are always happy to see a friend in our plain way,--pale sherry, old port, and cut and come again.

Hey ?" I said I would come and bring Hoskins too.
He answered that I was very polite, and that he should be very happy to see Hoskins; and we went accordingly at the appointed day and hour; but though Gus was eleventh clerk and I twelfth, I remarked that at dinner I was helped first and best.