I will give you a profession, and make an independent man of you, if you will try for the future to be a docile and obedient boy." I promised to do my best.

He then bade me follow him, and leading the way through a narrow arched passage, he introduced me into the public office, where the large business in which he was engaged was carried on.

Though I had been four years in the house, I had never seen the inside of this office before.

It was a spacious, dark, dirty, apartment, lighted by high, narrow windows of ground glass; so that no time could be wasted by the junior clerks in looking out into the street.

Several pale, melancholy men were seated at desks, hard at work.